


From Beneath Us, It Devours

by Cici_Nota



Series: In Which A Series Of Poor Decisions Leads To Consequences [2]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Body Horror, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-26
Updated: 2013-04-18
Packaged: 2017-12-06 12:49:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 22,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/735891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cici_Nota/pseuds/Cici_Nota
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The crew of the Lost Light comes across a Cybertronian relic crash-landed on a nameless moon and Rodimus is bored enough to investigate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Finds It Hard To Sit Still

It was all but buried in a crater when they found it, empty and derelict, the only initial indication of its presence the very faint signature reminiscent of spent energon pinging the sensors.

“There, right there, that’s something,” Rodimus said, hanging over the back of Sunstreaker’s chair, all but smacking his subordinate in the face as he pointed at a minute discrepancy on the console in front of them.

Sunstreaker blinked, looked sideways at Rodimus, and blinked again. “It’s, uh,” he said, and then apparently ran out of vocabulary.

“It’s a minor discrepancy,” said Perceptor from across the room, coming to Sunstreaker’s rescue. “A _very_ minor discrepancy.”

“But it’s there. There’s something. There’s a thing.” Rodimus stood upright so quickly that Sunstreaker had to duck to the side to avoid a spoiler to the chin.  “We’re going to go look at it.”

Had Ultra Magnus been on the bridge, the Lost Light would most likely not have made a course correction down to investigate an anomalous reading on the dark side of the smallest moon orbiting an unassuming planet itself in orbit around a perfectly normal class II yellow star. The Lost Light’s SiC was the only person on board capable of reining in Rodimus’ enthusiasm for any type of distraction when caught in the throes of boredom, and his absence now meant that Rodimus faced no real opposition.

Then again, had Ultra Magnus been on the bridge, his objections would have had no further basis than “It’s a waste of time,” and the crew of the Lost Light had nothing but time on their hands. (And a brig full of Decepticons, none of whom were currently causing trouble, in part due to rigid supervision on the part of Ultra Magnus.)

As it was, Ultra Magnus arrived to see the approach of the small moon and it was far too late to change Rodimus’ mind.

“What are you doing?” he asked instead, calmly.

“There’s a ship down there,” Rodimus answered, peering at the forward viewscreen. Ultra Magnus followed his gaze.

The outlines of a Cybertronian ship were clearly visible, now that the Lost Light’s sensors had been reset to the appropriate parameters. Graceful even in its disarray, the hull was almost cradled by a massive crater wall, tucked under the lip as if for safekeeping.

“It’s a relic,” Ultra Magnus said, interested despite himself. The Lost Light was currently at loose ends, its only lead of Decepticon activity having yielded no tangible results, and he couldn’t quite blame Rodimus for haring off on a side quest out of sheer frustration. “I don’t recognize the hull,” he added.

“Run it through the database,” Rodimus said.

“We don’t _have_ that kind of information in the database,” Sunstreaker told him.

“Okay, fine, go get Rewind. Oh! And Cyclonus and Tailgate.” Rodimus beamed. “Maybe one of them can identify it before we go take a look. Give us an idea of what to expect.”

“You want to –“ Ultra Magnus started.

“Why not?” Rodimus threw himself into the captain’s chair and tapped his fingers moodily on the arm rest; Ultra Magnus didn’t think he knew he was doing it.

“Are there any survivors?” Ultra Magnus asked, not looking at Rodimus.

“None,” Perceptor answered, mercifully brief.

“So?” Rodimus crossed his arms and started tapping a foot instead. “It’s Cybertronian. We should at least find out who was on board and what happened to them. For posterity. They’re our people, Magnus.”

The problem was that Rodimus wasn’t wrong; while many of Cybertron’s residents had scattered to the four corners of the galaxy to escape the civil war, only a fraction had come back. Even a small piece of their race’s history was worth the time it took to collect it. “I’ll assemble a team,” Ultra Magnus said.

“What? No!” Rodimus sat bolt upright, uncrossing his arms to grip at the chair underneath him. “I’ll go.”

He had the particularly mulish expression that meant that he would not only refuse to listen to reason but more than likely pull Drift into his temporary insanity. Ultra Magnus tried the second-best option.  “You and I,” he began.

“You’re needed here,” Rodimus said, eyeing him. “On the very very small totally infinitesimal off chance that something does happen to me over there, or that it’s a trap, or that some random Decepticons are planning an ambush, or…” he paused, running out of scenarios. “Or whatever, then you need to be here to make sure everyone else gets to safety. I trust you to keep the rest of the crew safe.”

Ultra Magnus really hated it when Rodimus pulled the safety card. “At least let me choose your team,” he said.

Rodimus considered for a moment. “Seems fair,” he said. “Ultra Magnus, assemble a small team to accompany me to the Cybertronian ship.”

“Yes, sir,” Ultra Magnus said drily, but Rodimus didn’t smile. He just gave Ultra Magnus a vaguely worried look, which meant he hadn’t quite gotten the joke. The awkward pause lasted until the bridge door slid open to admit Rewind, Tailgate hard on his heels.

“We have a ship!” Rodimus declared, flinging himself out of his chair as eagerly as he’d tossed himself into it.

Rewind blinked, his optics shuttering on and off several times. “Ye-es,” he agreed carefully.

“How is the Lost Light supposed to be news to us if we’ve been on it all this time?” Tailgate muttered to Rewind, not quietly enough to avoid being overheard.

“Not the Lost Light,” Rodimus said impatiently. “There. Look. That one.”

“Ah,” Rewind said. Tailgate stared at it, optics tightly focused.

“Do you recognize it?” Rodimus asked, when neither one of them said anything.

“It’s not the Ark,” Tailgate offered, which got a round of weak chuckles. “No, I don’t,” he said. “I’m sorry. I think it’s from after my time.”

“Eh, worth a shot,” Rodimus said. “Rewind?”

“Just a minute,” Rewind said absently, optics dimmed.  “I… don’t have a match in any of my archived footage,” he said what seemed like an interminable length of time later but was only a few minutes. “Or not a definite one, anyway, it could be one of literally hundreds. Maybe thousands. It’s not an uncommon hull design. I think.”

Cyclonus, who had arrived on the bridge during Rewind’s moments of silence, was leaning forward to study the screen. “There are several discrepancies between this hull shape and the common formation it resembles,” he said. “Here, and here.” His pale fingers pointed out several places on the relic’s outlines.

“Like I said,” Rewind repeated, “I don’t have a match.”

“So we’re going in blind,” Rodimus said, and shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Who’s we?” Tailgate asked, glancing from side to side.

“Rodimus,” Ultra Magnus replied. “Atomizer. Perceptor. Sunstreaker. And Whirl.”

“Me?” Sunstreaker asked, turning around abruptly; from his expression, it had been an involuntary vocalization.

“Bring your pet,” Ultra Magnus said. “Its keen sensors may prove to be an advantage.”

“I’m not sure I want Bob in any danger,” Sunstreaker objected, hands tightening on the back of his chair.

“Sunstreaker,” Ultra Magnus said patiently, “Bob is an _Insecticon_. It’s far less likely to be in danger than any other member of the party.” _Particularly since Rodimus is leading the way_ , he did not say. “Your first priority is to establish an appropriate atmosphere aboard,” he continued.  “I don’t need to remind you that long-term exposure to a hard vacuum will eventually force stasis lock.”

“Ah, it’d take hours,” Rodimus said, and then wilted slightly under Ultra Magnus’ glare. “Okay, okay, I know, if we can’t re-establish atmospheric integrity we’ll come back. Happy?”

“Yes,” Ultra Magnus said, and Rodimus gave him another peculiar look. Ultra Magnus decided then and there to give up on his attempts at humor; they clearly weren’t working. “Tell Atomizer to bring his crossbow,” he said, adding it as if it were an afterthought. It wasn’t. Atomizer could do a great deal of damage with his chosen ranged weapon, and his teammates should be agile enough to avoid any friendly fire.

“Streaker, get Atomizer and Whirl and meet me down at the docking bay in five,” Rodimus said, bouncing ever so slightly on his toes. “Perceptor, get whatever equipment you think you might need; I’ll help you carry it down.”

“Aah, you’re trying to get me killed before we get off the ship,” Sunstreaker said.

“Whirl isn’t going to shoot you.” Rodimus grinned. “Come on, guys, we have a ship to investigate! Go! Go!”

Ultra Magnus stifled a sigh as the three members of his chosen team currently on the bridge scattered. It was an empty ship, after all, crash-landed on a moon. “What could possibly go wrong?” he asked rhetorically, clamping down on the automatic mental list of ways the exploration could rapidly go south; the ship looked like it had been broken down for years, centuries, possibly even millennia, and whatever had downed it was most likely long gone.

The trouble with _most likely_ was that it still left room for potentially lethal incidents.

***

“That’s not just a relic,” Perceptor said as they approached. “It’s started to disintegrate.”

A few of the oddities on the curves of the ship’s hull resolved themselves into gaping holes, jagged around the edges. The ship itself was massive, large enough to fit the entirety of the Lost Light into what was clearly the remains of a cargo hold, its entire wall fallen clean away. Bits of debris and dust littered the floor, uneven mounds of bulkhead material lying in heaps where it had crashed to the ground even under the small moon’s relatively low gravity.

“So, what?” Rodimus asked. “It’s older than we thought it was?”

“Both Tailgate and Cyclonus agreed that the design doesn’t match their time or before,” Sunstreaker put in, sounding hesitant. He hadn’t spoken much, aboard the Lost Light, and it was almost a surprise to hear him offer a comment now.

“Neither Tailgate nor Cyclonus are historians,” Perceptor said repressively; it wasn’t a particularly useful comment after all. “Though Rewind did concur, and his historical archives are quite extensive.”

“That’s not a conclusion,” Rodimus complained.  

“How much atmosphere do we have out there?” Atomizer asked, adjusting his crossbow. Whirl peered out the side window, uncharacteristically silent, tapping his head against the clear plasteel.

“Atmospheric pressure is…” Perceptor caught Rodimus glaring at him.  “Negligible,” he finished smoothly, instead of offering the precise calculations. “Gravity is approximately one fourth Cybertronian standard.”

“Wonderful,” Rodimus said. “Okay, first we see if we can get life support working in there. Then we explore.” He pointed at the cavernous opening of the cargo hold.  “Sunstreaker, land in there.”

Sunstreaker piloted the pod through the wall with what looked like practiced ease; Perceptor suspected that he would have been capable of the same, even with his lack of piloting experience, given the amount of space to maneuver. The pod landed, shaking the floor almost imperceptibly, and dust rained from the ceiling.

“That’s just great,” Sunstreaker said, but nothing else collapsed.

“Oh, wonderful,” Whirl said, and he’d been so quiet that Perceptor had almost forgotten he was there. “We’ll pull it all down over our heads.”

“No, we won’t,” Rodimus said. “Everybody out.”

The lack of atmosphere to carry sound waves meant using the inter-Autobot radio to communicate once they were out of the pod. Perceptor made sure the airlock closed properly to maintain the climate inside the shuttle, and then the exterior doors cycled open.

“Lights,” Rodimus said, and everyone with built-in headlights flicked them on. Whirl held an archaic lantern high, looped over one wrist. The cargo bay looked even bigger in the dark, but Rodimus moved confidently toward what looked like some sort of hatch. “There’s an access panel,” he called over his shoulder.

Perceptor picked up his toolkit and jogged closer. The panel was corroded, bits of the surface paint flaking free as he pried it loose. The wiring underneath was no better, but a few drops of solvent cleaned some of the leads enough to slide the door open.  Comparatively warm air rushed out in a torrent, pushing Rodimus back.  He grabbed the edge of the doorframe, bodily hauling Atomizer, Sunstreaker, and Whirl inside.  Perceptor forced his way in as well, with Rodimus coming last.  Bob darted in at the last second, and Perceptor tweaked the leads to allow the door to slide shut.

“Did that seem like the ship was trying to keep us out to anyone else?” Whirl said, and was the recipient of the second Rodimus glare.

“That was simply atmospheric pressure normalizing,” Perceptor said. “A full systems check can best be performed on the bridge. If this ship follows Cybertronian standards, it will be this way.” He strode off without waiting either for permission or to see if the others would follow.

“Slag,” he heard Rodimus mutter behind them, and then the rest of his companions caught up. The interior of the ship was even darker than the exterior had been; without ambient starlight, the only illumination came from the small boarding party. Perceptor couldn’t resist pointing his in different directions to get as much information as possible before reaching the bridge, but he saw nothing unusual in the ship’s construction.

The ship’s current condition was another story entirely; the walls were disintegrating as they stood, as were the floors and ceilings.  More than once, a weak section nearly gave way.  Bob turned out to be an expert on gauging the relative safety of any patch of ground, and it didn’t take long for Rodimus set Sunstreaker on point. Perceptor took the protected center of the group, with Whirl bringing up the rear.

“I should have more eyes for this,” Whirl said, his single optic roving back and forth. He moved perfectly smoothly, though.

“You make up the difference with bloodthirsty determination,” Rodimus told him, and Whirl actually barked out a short laugh.

There were no signs of anyone aboard the ship in any of the rooms they passed, from the engines to the remains of an oil reserve, to what were clearly crew quarters.  Laboratories and medibays were also on the route, clearly visible through holes in the walls.  Silvery dust kicked up by their passing made an almost choking haze, worst in the medibay. 

“There’s clearly an atmosphere, are you sure you need the bridge?” Rodimus asked after several minutes of silence broken only by Whirl humming.

“Yes,” Perceptor said, keeping his reply as monosyllabic as possible. More than once he’d had to reroute their path due to doors refusing to open. He’d guessed the most likely cause was lack of air on the other side, and he didn’t want a repeat of the initial boarding shenanigans. Only on the bridge could he be sure of accessing enough data to get a proper map.

Rodimus smiled at him briefly. “Okay, okay, you don’t need to go into so much detail.”

“I know,” Perceptor said, and Rodimus laughed.

“How much longer until we reach the bridge?” Atomizer asked from Perceptor’s other side.

“Not far now,” Perceptor said, searching for an access hatch. He found one in an intersection.  “Through there and straight up, most likely.”

“Great.” Rodimus yanked the hatch off the wall, moving out of the way of a trickle of the same silvery dust and exposing a panel not large enough for more than one person at a time. “I’ll go first. Sunstreaker, you and Bob are right behind me. Then Perceptor. Atomizer. Whirl.”

The bridge was right where Perceptor had suspected it would be, although not quite where it would have been in a standard ship. There was something about the design of this particular ship that reminded him of something else, and he’d let the nagging not-quite-memory guide his actions.

“Well. This is. Something.” Rodimus idly kicked at the dust on the floor, sending clouds through the air. “I guess we’re lucky there’s still air in here.”

“Smells stale,” Sunstreaker said from where he knelt on the floor petting Bob. The Insecticon chirruped at the attention, his optics glowing happily. “Kind of dirty.”

“That’ll be the dust,” Atomizer said sharply, prowling around the corners of the room. “Where’s the slagging crew?”

“If you’ll be patient, I might be able to tell you.” The first console Perceptor tried was too corroded to support any kind of a connection; the same was true of the second and the third. The fourth console, directly behind the captain’s chair, seemed more promising. A whistling noise filled the room as soon as he removed the access panel, less corroded than the first three.

“What in Primus’ name is that noise?” Rodimus demanded, after all of them – Whirl excepted – nearly jumped out of their skins at the sudden sound.

Perceptor stared very hard at the console. “There are some microscopic fissures,” he said finally. “We’re venting atmosphere.”

“How quickly?” Rodimus asked.

“Not quickly at all,” Perceptor hastened to assure him. “The noise is the worst effect. Unless conditions change drastically, it will be a matter of days before the change is noticeable.”

“Drastically,” Whirl muttered. He’d put a very neat hole right above the console in question, at an angle that suggested he’d had to modify his aim at the last possible microsecond. “That sound is all kinds of wrong.”

“It’s perfectly normal,” Perceptor said, and got to work.

Contrary to Perceptor’s expectations, the power levels in the ship’s systems hadn’t hit zero; they were resting at around 38%.  While it was too low to maintain flight, it was high enough to maintain an atmosphere and several of the vital systems.

“Huh,” he said, and when Rodimus gave him an inquiring look, Perceptor responded with the most technical answer he could possibly produce. Rodimus clearly decided to back off and leave him alone after that.

The sensor network was flickering badly; completely down in some places – mostly those corresponding to the locked doors Perceptor had noticed, which implied that a vacuum was a plausible hypothesis – and shaky at best in others. He did manage to download a map of currently pressurized compartments, largely in the interior of the ship.  The majority of the exterior sections were open to space at best and a total unknown at worst, although the dead parts of the network reached far into the core of the ship in places.

“So, what,” Rodimus said when Perceptor showed him the map. “This is where we can go?”

“With the extremely limited information I have currently available, I can offer the tenuous hypothesis that these areas are not entirely inimical to Cybertronian life,” Perceptor said. 

Rodimus parsed the sentence. “So that’s a yes.”

“That’s a very tentative yes,” Perceptor corrected.

“And what happened to the crew?” Rodimus wanted to know.

“Rodimus, please. I’ve barely begun.”

Rodimus clapped him on the shoulder. “Great. You and Sunstreaker stay here. I’m going to get a few more teams over here to explore further. If nothing else, we might learn something about our own history. Hey, if we’re really lucky, there might be a connection to either the Circle of Light or the Knights of Cybertron.”

Perceptor forbore from pointing out exactly how unlikely either of those two events were; if Rodimus wanted to believe that this ship was perhaps old enough to be contemporary with the object of their quest, it wouldn’t hurt. “I don’t see why not,” he said.

He would come to regret those words in the days ahead.


	2. Adorable Abomination

Drift eyed the makeshift airlock. It wasn’t quite what he’d expected; apparently the relic didn’t have the same type of emergency bulkheads that the Lost Light did, in case of unexpected depressurization. Someone had jury-rigged a few airlocks out of existing components and wired them into the ship’s systems for easier access.

“What are you expecting to find?” Rewind asked from behind him, red light on and recording. Chromedome was all but hovering protectively over him; Rewind hadn’t been out of recovery long for injuries sustained during the bomb explosion on Temptoria, but he’d insisted on seeing the relic anyway.

“Pipes stayed behind,” Chromedome said. “And Cyclonus.” He hadn’t originally been flagged as a member of an exploratory team – his particular talents weren’t applicable in the glaring absence of corpses and their accompanying brains – but he refused to let Rewind go without him.

“I’m fine,” Rewind said, reaching out and catching Chromedome’s hand. “I’ll just follow you two around.”

Drift couldn’t help a small smile. He’d reshuffled the teams to accompany the couple himself; he was sure he could handle anything that came up on his own and get them both to safety, if it came down to it. “We’re looking for any indications of who the people on board were, how the ship got here, and how long it’s been here,” he said, and led the way through the airlock.

“Shouldn’t we be getting into the ship’s logs for that?” Rewind asked, clambering through the door. Chromedome took up the rear, glancing around the cavernous cargo bay apprehensively.

“Perceptor and Mainframe are trying,” Drift said; he’d had _all_ the reports. Ultra Magnus kept forwarding them to him. “But there’s so much corrosion that they’re not having much luck.”

“The internal sensor network is up and running, though?” Rewind continued.

“More or less,” Drift said, speaking directly to Rewind’s camera. “It’s unreliable. Dipstick and Huffer are both attempting to restore some system functionality under Mainframe’s direction.”

The interior door cycled open, releasing a cloud of warm, stale air. Rewind coughed as it hit his intakes.  “It smells odd,” he said in response to Chromedome’s suddenly intense hovering.

“Dusty,” Drift said.

“That’s a moon for you,” Chromedome replied absently. “The dust gets everywhere.”

“Rodimus asked us specifically to verify the status of the relic’s external weapons systems,” Drift said, again speaking to the camera.  “Well, the bits on the inside anyway, that can’t be seen from out there.”

The relic had a fairly impressive set of armaments for a neutral ship. Then again, Drift remembered the Decepticon and Autobot ships eager to blow anyone not specifically an ally out of the sky, and thought that if more neutral ships had had this type of weaponry, the number of neutrals coming home after the war might have been higher. The relic’s arsenal hadn’t saved it, though, so it was possibly a moot point after all.

Using maps provided by Perceptor’s initial success with the internal sensor network, Drift led the way toward the nearest of the externally mounted cannons. The small party had barely reached the weaponry when it became perfectly clear that not a single shot had been fired. The cannons were still in their inactive mode, barrels locked and covered.  The nearby missile launchers had the remains of a full complement – and Drift used the word _remains_ in his mentally composed report because the cannons and their ammunition were as decayed as the rest of the ship.

“I don’t think they went down fighting,” Chromedome said.

“Not exactly,” Drift answered, carefully moving bits of debris aside. “Let’s check the next one.”

The size of the ship notwithstanding, manually checking the relic’s arsenal wasn’t a quick job. Drift spent as much or more time cataloguing damage to the relic’s internal structures en route to the next section of hull as he did checking the cannons, all of which was markedly consistent.

One section of floor gave way while they watched, crashing downwards and shaking more dust and debris out of the air.

“I’m not really sure this is safe,” Chromedome muttered, although none of them had been in any particular danger; the unstable sections creaked and groaned before giving way, offering plenty of warning to anyone alert enough to pay attention.

“Of course it’s safe,” Drift started to say, and then the airlock nearest to him – usually meant to serve as an exit port for the barrel of an active cannon – cycled open.  Air rushed past, dragging him with, and he barely caught the side of the airlock before it threw him out into space. Chromedome had Rewind and was clinging to the base of sturdily mounted cannon itself; they were in no danger. Drift slowly pulled himself back inside, against the tide of venting atmosphere.  He’d gotten perhaps halfway when the airlock started to slide shut again, threatening to cut him in half.

The flow of air intensified as its escape route narrowed.  Drift tucked his legs up, pulling against the current with herculean effort, but he wasn’t going to make it. His groping hand caught the lip of the cannon’s barrel, too little effort too late. Suddenly the airlock was closed, the pressure was gone, and Drift was lying on the floor on top of someone else.

“Sunstreaker?” he said as soon as his processor stopped throwing error messages at him. As far as he could tell, Sunstreaker had yanked him inside just barely in time; there was a faint scrape at the back of one heel where the airlock had clipped his foot on the way past. It was far preferable to the alternative. Drift tried to get up.

“Did you see him?” Sunstreaker demanded as soon as Drift started moving, hands still gripping Drift’s shoulders.

“See who?” Drift asked, trying to extricate himself.  Sunstreaker wasn’t about to let go.

“ _Hunter_ ,” Sunstreaker said, pulling Drift back down.

 _Hunter_ , Drift mouthed. He knew the story, knew the name of the human who’d been so very temporarily Sunstreaker’s partner in an experiment of madness and depravity.

“He was here,” Sunstreaker said. “I saw him run in here.”

“No one came in here,” Drift said cautiously. He waited a moment, but Sunstreaker just stared at him. “I thought he was – I mean, I was under the impression that Hunter was no longer, uh, among the living.”

“He isn’t!” Sunstreaker shook Drift slightly, optics as wide as they could possibly go and a crazed glint flashing in their depths.

“Sunstreaker,” Drift said evenly, “I need you to let go of me.” He tried to project a calming aura, keeping his body language relaxed, and motioned with one finger for Chromedome and Rewind to leave the room.

Their footsteps as they cleared the door seemed to break Sunstreaker’s mania; he let go abruptly and sank back. “Sorry,” he said, one shaking hand over his optics. “I don’t know what came over me.”

Drift climbed carefully to his feet and then helped Sunstreaker up.  “Are you all right?” he asked, trying to establish a sense of normalcy rather than get an actual answer.

“I – fine,” Sunstreaker said. His hands were steady and his optics had contracted back to their normal state. “Where’s Bob?”

The Insecticon abomination’s name was enough to summon it, apparently; it came bounding into the room and latched onto Sunstreaker, aft wiggling against the floor. 

“That’s a good boy,” Sunstreaker murmured, hands stroking the Insecticon. More of the tension drained out of his shoulders.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Drift asked.

“Yeah, yeah, I… it must have been a trick of the light,” Sunstreaker said. “Too many shadows, not enough recharge time.”

“Okay,” Drift said cautiously.  “If you see Hunter again, I want you to come to me immediately.” He could handle a ghost. If nothing else, he could use the Great Sword on it and exorcise it with the energy of the living.

“Yes, sir,” Sunstreaker said.

“And get some rest.” Drift had no idea how long Sunstreaker had been aboard the relic, working on whatever it was he had been assigned to do, but Drift himself had been on shift long enough to want a break and Sunstreaker had been there for a fair chunk of time longer.

“Yes, sir,” Sunstreaker repeated, still absently scratching around Bob’s antennae. Bob leaned against him, purring.

Drift left the weapons chamber and found Chromedome in the hallway. “Where’s Rewind?”

“Went for help,” Chromedome said. “In case Sunny finally lost it.”

“Sunstreaker is fine.” Drift flipped on his inter-Autobot radio. _Rewind, return to Chromedome and I. The situation is under control._

 _I’m on my way with Hoist and Trailbreaker_ , Rewind sent back.

 _Negative_ , Drift replied. _No mediation or medical intervention required._

 _If you say so_ , Rewind sent doubtfully, but he trotted around the corner alone a few minutes later. “They’re both not far if you change your mind,” he said.

“It’s fine,” Drift repeated. “Come on, we’re moving to the next chamber.”

By the time they’d confirmed damage levels and ammunitions inventory in the forward section, Drift was tired enough that he was almost ready to admit to seeing ghosts. Shadows flickered out of the corner of his eye, more often than not bearing an eerie resemblance to someone once living.

Drift rubbed at his optics. “I’m calling this it for today,” he said.

“Oh, good,” Chromedome said.  Rewind was clinging to his back, optics shuttered, red recording light still on. “Stamina’s not quite back yet,” he said at Drift’s inquiring look. “Just giving him a bit of a break.”

“Tell me next time and we’ll stop earlier,” Drift said, chagrined that he hadn’t noticed Rewind dragging.

“I think we’ve had enough of this place,” Chromedome said. “The rest of it can be documented by standard methods.”

“Fair enough.” Drift led the way back down to the cargo bay; it wasn’t far, given their circuitous route across the interior of the relic’s hull. They were the last team on their shuttle to arrive, Rewind following Chromedome on his own two feet through the same makeshift airlock they’d used to enter the relic.

“Ready?” Cosmos asked, oversized hands at the controls.

“Take off,” Drift said wearily.

The shuttle pod landed in Bay 3, which had not been their point of exit from the Lost Light.

“Ultra Magnus’ orders,” Cosmos said when Drift asked why. “Basic decontamination.”

Drift asked why again, the word slipping out before he could restrain his tongue. Cosmos shrugged.

“I couldn’t tell you,” he said, and then hesitated.  “Most likely the dust.”

Ah, it all made sense. Drift looked at the footprints on the floor of the shuttle pod, the grime coating the finishes on the majority of the shuttle pod’s passengers. “That does sound like Ultra Magnus,” he said. “Fragging obsessive-compulsive…”

“You said it, not me,” Cosmos interrupted, and Drift realized that he’d let his mouth run away on him again.

“Right,” he said. “Basic decontamination it is.”

Shuttle Bay 3 had not originally been set up as a decontamination ward, but Drift could see signs of Grapple’s handiwork; not only was the quickly installed equipment functional, it was also aesthetically pleasing.

“Everyone out,” he said unnecessarily, and followed them through the brief procedure. Dirty water swirled along the floor, collected in grooves to be most likely purified and then reused. Drift watched it go, glinting in the overhead lights, and was suddenly very glad of the ambient illumination; there were no half-seen shadows on the edges of his vision here.

“You all have your assignments for the next shift,” he said. “Dismissed.”

The shuttle passengers dispersed with varying levels of acknowledgement; Drift himself had a report to make, and if the shadow cast by the shuttle pod briefly held a familiar outline, he refused to acknowledge it.

* * *

Sunstreaker leaned against one of the relic’s sturdier walls, one hand absentmindedly scratching at Bob’s antenna. The room he was currently occupying was attached to the hull, one of its four walls largely gone.  It had been resealed by falling debris, more or less, although the whistling sound of atmosphere slowly escaping was more than audible.

Bob wriggled until he was more firmly in Sunstreaker’s lap, purring at the attention. Sunstreaker brought up his other hand to pet Bob’s back, stroking the base of his thrusters. The relic was peaceful in a way the Lost Light wasn’t, the silence – the leak notwithstanding – more profound than anything a small ship crowded with two hundred bots could ever offer. Sunstreaker found himself reluctant to return to the Lost Light and its ever present hum of noise, requesting and obtaining permission to remain aboard the relic instead.

He shifted, curling his legs around underneath him just a little tighter and relaxing into Bob’s warm purring. He’d turned off his lights, and the only illumination in the room came from Bob’s four glowing optics. It wasn’t enough to penetrate the gloom, and Sunstreaker liked that just fine.

For a very brief moment, memory swamped him, and he shuddered at the sensation of falling, of impact, of being buried beneath hundreds of shattered Insecticon bodies.  Bob was the Swarm and the debris of the relic was the broken bridge, and the stars overhead burned pitilessly in the sky. As quickly as it had come, the memory was gone; Sunstreaker’s hands hadn’t even stopped moving. He’d gotten used to the flashbacks, the images and sensations swamping his processor without warning and leaving just as abruptly.

Hunter, crouched in the corner of the room and staring at him sadly, was not part of any flashback.  Sunstreaker scrambled backwards, away from his deceased human counterpart, tangled up in Bob’s legs.  His back hit the opposite wall, but Sunstreaker kept trying to push farther. The wall creaked under the pressure, holding firm, and Bob whined in consternation. 

“What do you want from me?” Sunstreaker shouted, finally managing to gain his feet.  The door, where was the door? He groped along the wall, but Hunter didn’t move. He just sat motionless, eyes alone following Sunstreaker’s movements.  He looked fully human, healthy, green t-shirt proudly displaying its alien head logo.  “What do you want?”

Bob whined, optics swinging back and forth between Sunstreaker and Hunter, clearly confused. Sunstreaker barely noticed, just enough to put his own body between Bob and the ghost.

“You can’t have him,” he said, but Hunter just looked sadder.

The door finally slid open and Sunstreaker pushed a protesting Bob through it, keeping his eyes on Hunter the entire time. When it came time for him to leave, he tripped on a fallen strut. When he looked back, Hunter was gone. Sunstreaker looked around wildly, but there was nothing to be seen.  He broke into a run, heading back toward the bridge, Bob tight on his heels.

“What is it?” Mainframe asked when Sunstreaker burst through the door, air cycling across his vents in quick ragged bursts.

“I… I saw…” He suddenly realized how it would sound.  “I thought I saw something. It was nothing,” he muttered. Bob pressed against his side, crooning unhappily.

“Anything could be important,” Perceptor said, motioning Mainframe to continue his work. “What did you see?”

“I…” Sunstreaker looked away. “I thought I saw Hunter,” he said. He didn’t need to explain who Hunter was, not to Perceptor. “It was nothing. It was dark, and… it was nothing.”

Perceptor gave him a long, measured look. “Perhaps you should return to the Lost Light and have your optic relays tested,” he said finally, his single visible optic narrowing in what Sunstreaker could only read as derision.

The words stung; Sunstreaker knew what he’d seen, and he knew his optics weren’t malfunctioning. He also knew that Perceptor had never quite forgiven him for the injury he’d sustained while the Swarm bore down upon them all. “Maybe,” he said, earning a sharper look from Perceptor. Sunstreaker bit his tongue to keep from saying something he’d regret later, clenching his teeth together.

“There’s a shuttle due to leave shortly,” Perceptor said, and then turned back to his console, effectively shutting Sunstreaker out.

“I’ll be on it,” Sunstreaker said, and left the bridge. Bob followed, still whining unhappily. Only at that point did Sunstreaker think to wonder how he’d been able to see Hunter so clearly in such a dark room.  “Slagging ghosts,” he whispered, but he couldn’t stop himself from searching every shadow he passed for signs of his human once-counterpart.  He didn’t see Hunter again, but he didn’t stop looking until the shuttle cleared the relic’s cargo bay.


	3. A Trick Of The Light

“There’s no way we’re going to get enough of this hulk running to be useful in any way.” Huffer was glaring at a section of cabling that had, in fact, been restored to usefulness and was currently responsible for an 18% increase in internal sensor functionality. The goal had been to improve the power grid and stop the relic from automatically shutting down access to non-vital systems, which obviously hadn’t happened, but an improved sensor network wasn’t exactly a black mark.

Trailbreaker made a note of the completed repair to send up to Mainframe; despite his constant complaints, Huffer was making notable progress. “Don’t say that,” he said cheerfully. “We’ve got a much better view of the interior of the ship now.”

“Yeah, and what are we looking at? Rotting walls, that’s what. Just more of the same.” Huffer was already packing up his equipment and moving to the next sensitive junction. “None of this tells us what happened to the crew, anyway.”

“No, but look.” Trailbreaker pointed at the console, which was actually blinking. “Something’s working.”

“Bah,” Huffer said, and started walking. Trailbreaker jogged to catch up.

The updated map came back as a message a few minutes later; several blank spots in the still-nameless relic’s sensor grid had resolved as exposed to space and therefore were marked yellow for caution. A few areas were marked definitively red – Trailbreaker wasn’t sure what, exactly, qualified as Too Hazardous To Enter, but he wasn’t about to wander inside against instruction to find out – and a whole host of new areas had been marked in the green and blue of Go Check It Out and Been There, Nothing Dangerous, respectively.

“Here,” Huffer said, cutting off Trailbreaker’s train of thought, and the two of them quickly set up the basic illumination scaffolding that meant no one had to work in the dark.  The harsh white light cast sharp black lines of shadow against the stark relief of grayish white metal without a concealing layer of paint. “No wonder the power grid’s such a fragging mess,” Huffer said loudly, once the lights had been angled to his satisfaction.

A twisted mass of cabling leading to and from rusted-out power cells looked like so much junk to Trailbreaker, and he said so.

“Actually, it’s ingenious,” Huffer said, the compliment sounding unwilling. “See where they’ve bypassed the most damaged –“ He broke off. “Oh, you have no idea.”

“I do not,” Trailbreaker said amiably. “But I’ll listen, if you want to explain.”

“This is one of the major power relay stations,” Huffer said. “See how the crew rerouted around those particular cells?”

“There’s nothing there,” Trailbreaker said, following Huffer’s pointed finger.

“Precisely.” Huffer unpacked the first of his set of tools and started slicing and splicing, muttering to himself as he worked.

“Wait,” Trailbreaker said, crouched by one of the alleged power cells. There was nothing there but crumbling bits of rust. “This was taken out of the… the…”

“Yes,” Huffer said shortly, not looking up.

“But why would it have corroded so much more quickly than the rest of the cells in the junction?” There was a single spot of nothingness at one edge of the station, with the level of corrosion and decay generally lessening the farther away from that one spot any given cell was.

“How should I know? Initial damage?” Huffer shrugged, the motion of his shoulders not disturbing his hands at all. “It didn’t decay that much more quickly, look at the cells next to it.”

Trailbreaker glanced around the room of quietly rusting blocks and felt a cold shiver run up his backstrut for no reason at all. “Did the temperature in here just change?”

“ _No_ ,” Huffer said. “Stop talking. You’re disrupting my concentration.”

Since Trailbreaker was there more in case of unfortunate incidences than to mechanically restorative abilities, he shut up and kept looking around.  Huffer inched down a thick nest of cabling, stopping at a ridge in the floor that Trailbreaker now saw was the threshold of a rather large door. It had been physically jammed open, presumably to allow the cabling to not be severed.

Trailbreaker paced slowly around the room, briefly noting his and Huffer’s faint footprints in the grime on the floor. The uncharitable thought that Ultra Magnus would probably short-circuit from the disgraceful state of uncleanliness flashed across his processor, and Trailbreaker couldn’t help his mouth twitching in a small smile before he shut down that particular line of thinking. Magnus wasn’t bad, exactly, just a little tightly wound.

The sudden shift in ambient lighting came hard on the heels of the thought, and Trailbreaker’s initial reaction was more vocal than intended. “Magnus rage,” he said. “He’s going to off-line me for that.”

“What are you on about?” Huffer said, eying the reddish-orange lights in the floors and ceilings. Not all of them had been activated, but they would have been enough to provide adequate illumination even without the foreign scaffolding and floodlights. The heavy glass shielding most of them was less than intact, leaving random patterns of barely-seen shadows whispering across the walls.

“Uh, nothing,” Trailbreaker said, telling himself that it was a case of bad timing, nothing more. Ultra Magnus certainly wasn’t in the business of reading other Autobots’ minds and censoring less than favorable lines of thinking. _We’d all have been in the brig a dozen times over if that were the case_ , he thought.

“This is your fearless leader,” came Rodimus’ voice over the inter-Autobot radio, broadcasting on all the associated frequencies. “Mainframe has succeeded in activating the emergency lights. Sorry if that startled anyone.”

“Give me a fragging spark attack,” Trailbreaker muttered, damping down the last ends of his startled response.

Huffer chuckled, and then explained when Trailbreaker gave him a sour look. “Nice to see I’m not the only jumpy one around here,” he said.

“Yeah, yeah.” Trailbreaker peered around the room in the new light; it wasn’t like the details were any more visible in the lurid smudges of half-light than they had been in the previously dark-edged brightness. The massive sliding door caught his attention.  “Does that look different to you?”

“No,” Huffer said, after a cursory glance.

The debris wedged into the threshold’s center groove was still in the same position, as far as Trailbreaker could tell, but he couldn’t shake the impression that the door itself had slid a few inches farther shut. He paced over to it, careful to avoid touching the makeshift doorstop or the door itself, but the sticky dust webbing the doorframe hadn’t moved.  Trailbreaker wandered out into the hallway, mentally cataloguing the immediate area.

A flash off to the side – barely within his peripheral vision – sent him spinning around, but there was nothing there. One of the reddish lights was flickering, one with more darkened cracks in its surface than actual glass. All in all, Trailbreaker was beginning to feel that the relic was a less comforting place to be with the almost organic light than it had been in pitch darkness.

Movement registered again, and Trailbreaker fully expected to see yet another flickering emergency light when he turned to face it. Instead, he saw a familiar silhouette reaching for the spotlight scaffolding.

“No!” he shouted, moving forward.  “Don’t touch that!”

Glitch put his hands on the scaffolding and the bright spotlights went out. The room suddenly felt warmer, and something yanked on Trailbreaker’s wrist while something else tangled around his foot.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Huffer demanded, one hand gripping Trailbreaker’s arm tightly.

“Uh,” Trailbreaker said. He looked back toward the scaffolding, but Glitch was gone. “I thought I saw someone.”

“You got your foot tangled in the cords,” Huffer growled and let go of Trailbreaker’s wrist to yank something off his ankle. He reconnected the line and the spotlights flicked back on.  “Watch where you’re stepping next time.”

“Right,” Trailbreaker said. Huffer went back to work, muttering under his breath again. Trailbreaker caught the occasional derogatory comment, but he couldn’t particularly disagree. He snuck another look at the spot where he thought he’d seen Glitch; the partially-collapsed cell and some of the paneling that had fallen out of the wall did look like the faceless Autobot he’d known millions of years before.  Now that Trailbreaker was looking at it more closely, it looked kind of like Whirl, too, and he wondered idly why he’d assigned it Glitch’s identity. 

The lighting, he decided; the red lighting was a match for Glitch’s paneling rather than Whirl’s cool bluish-purple. Satisfied, Trailbreaker resumed his pacing. It took several minutes for him to see Glitch standing next to the propped-open door.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, this time retaining the presence of mind to point a ranged weapon directly at the old comrade who couldn’t possibly be where he was clearly standing. It wasn’t a trick of the light, it wasn’t a compilation of dust and debris, it was Glitch standing calmly with his claws at his sides.

“I’m _working_ , in case you’ve forgotten what that means,” Huffer snapped from behind him. 

Trailbreaker didn’t take his eyes off Glitch. “Not you,” he said. “Him.”

“Him who?” Huffer said, and from the less muffled sound of his voice, Trailbreaker knew that Huffer had turned to look in the same direction he was.

“ _Him_ ,” he said. “Glitch. We called him Glitch.”

“I don’t see anyone,” Huffer said after a pause. Glitch still hadn’t moved, except to slowly blink his single optic.

“He’s right there! Reddish skin, was subjected to Empurata back in the day and looks like Whirl. One optic, claws for hands, and when he touches things, they short out.” As the last few words left Trailbreaker’s mouth, Glitch’s sharp-edged not-hands slowly opened and closed.

“Trailbreaker, buddy, maybe you’ve been wandering around down here for just a little too long.”  There was a very unfamiliar note in Huffer’s voice, and it took Trailbreaker a moment to recognize it as actual concern. The surprise was enough that he involuntarily turned to look at Huffer.  As soon as he realized that he’d taken his eyes off Glitch, Trailbreaker looked back.

Glitch was, of course, gone.  There was nothing but a relatively smooth piece of wall.

“He was there,” Trailbreaker insisted, clenching his hands to keep them from trembling.

“Okay,” Huffer said, not unkindly. “You just, uh, come on over here. I’m nearly done.”

Trailbreaker backed toward the other Autobot’s voice, placing his feet very carefully and trying to look in every direction at once. There was simply no way Glitch could be on either the relic or the Lost Light, and yet there he had been.

The third time Trailbreaker saw Glitch, he was placing his hands on the doorstop and Trailbreaker had just barely reached Huffer.  The doorstop fell apart in a cloud of dust and the door began to creak closed.

“What’s that racket?” Huffer started to say, not looking around.

Glitch vanished and the door gained speed. Trailbreaker shoved Huffer out of the way, trying to block the door with a forcefield. The field glitched, flickering once and then failing altogether, and Trailbreaker wasn’t crushed only by the purest of blind luck; the corner of the door hit him in the back and hurled him after Huffer. He hit the ground with a pained thud.  The door slammed shut, shaking the walls and cutting the knot of cables clean in half.  The emergency lights blinked out, and with the scaffolding and spotlights on the other side of the now-closed door, the hallway was pitch black.

Trailbreaker could only lie on the ground, partly stunned by the impact, and stare at the myriad error messages slowly disappear.

“You okay?” Huffer said over Mainframe’s apologetic radio announcement regarding the loss of the emergency lighting, pulling him upright.

“Fine,” Trailbreaker said dazedly.  “But the work you just did…” He latched onto that rather than deal with the impossibility of a vanishing and reappearing comrade from far too long ago.

“Don’t worry about it,” Huffer said, and that really snapped Trailbreaker out of his haze. 

“You’re not damaged?” he asked, resolutely not looking at the shadows. Given that they were everywhere, it wasn’t easy.

“No,” Huffer said. “We should go.”

“We should get this door back open,” Trailbreaker said. Clearly the work Huffer had been doing had accidentally sparked the wrong connection in the corroded mess that was the power relay subsystem, and it had sent the door sliding closed. It was the only possible explanation.

“Yeah, I don’t think so.”

Trailbreaker eventually managed to convince Huffer that his tools and the emergency lighting scaffold needed retrieval, figuring that once the door was open he could talk Huffer into restarting whatever it was he’d been doing. The door slid open easily enough, for how heavy it was, but it showed no signs of wanting to close, even without Trailbreaker bracing it.

“I don’t trust it,” Huffer said, looking at it suspiciously. Trailbreaker jammed a piece of the wall into the groove at the base and part of the floor into the groove at the ceiling.

“That should hold,” he said.

“Right. Like the last one did.” Despite his outward complaints, it wasn’t that difficult to talk Huffer into picking up where he’d left off, and the emergency lighting had been reconnected by the time their shift ended. Most of the power relay subsystem was still a lost cause, but the response to Huffer’s report sounded like it might be possible to get some of the non-essential systems up and running.

The shuttle back was a welcome relief, and – surrounded by fellow crew members – the eerie atmosphere in the relay substation seemed worlds away. When Trailbreaker made his shift report to Ultra Magnus, he’d nearly forgotten about Glitch’s appearance entirely.

* * *

The stack of reports in front of Ultra Magnus were beginning to display a disturbing trend. The relic, as to be expected, had a number of malfunctions. Half of the systems that should have come online didn’t, and those that did kept glitching. The only systems that maintained any sort of reliability were the life support systems and the artificial gravity plating, and the latter of which was such a power drain that the flickering grid should have shut it off decades ago.

Had Ultra Magnus been subject to flights of fancy, he might have anthropomorphized the system malfunctions into a shipwide desire to quietly fall apart in piece, or perhaps wondered why the ship seemed to actively resist reactivation. Neither of these thoughts occurred to him; he reasonably put the issue down to corrupted processors and faulty wiring. It was therefore something of a surprise when Rodimus burst into his office claiming that the ship was haunted.

“Haunted?” Ultra Magnus said carefully.

Rodimus brandished a stack of reports. “Haven’t you been reading these? You forwarded them to me. I’ve read _all_ of them. By the way.”

The reports looked like exactly the same material as currently lay stacked neatly on Ultra Magnus’ desk. “Yes, I’ve read them,” he said.

“So you’ve seen the random airlocks open. The doors slide shut.” Rodimus’ optics were gleaming with a frankly disturbing level of enthusiasm, and Ultra Magnus was unpleasantly reminded of the sparkeater incident.

“With all due respect,” he started carefully, “I don’t think that indicates a supernatural occurrence.”

“Bah,” Rodimus said. “Then how do you explain the ghosts?”

The odd sightings were the second disturbing trend to have arisen from the accounts of work on the relic; had it only been a few bots, Ultra Magnus would have put it down to stress. But no, approximately 50% of the volunteers aboard the relic had noted – or their teammates had noted for them – seeing things or people that couldn’t possibly have been aboard.

“Ghosts don’t exist,” Ultra Magnus said carefully.

“Maybe it’s a time machine,” Rodimus said. “A fritzing, glitching time machine, and it’s grabbing random people from history.” He paused, optics widening. “It might pull someone from the future. Think of what we could ask!”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Ultra Magnus said.  Rodimus’ optics narrowed again; Ultra Magnus continued before Rodimus grew too attached to the time machine idea. “It’s far more likely that the crew is having difficulty adapting to the environment.”

“Right. Because we have trouble _adapting_.” Rodimus looked down, fingers drumming restlessly over his stack of reports.

“Millions of years of war, and peace wasn’t what we all hoped for,” Ultra Magnus said softly.

“And as soon as we start adjusting to not having to fight the Decepticons, bam, Temptoria,” Rodimus said, nodding.  “And we’re right back where we started, except not really. No, that makes perfect sense. Déjà vu in all the wrong ways.”

That hadn’t been where Ultra Magnus was going, but he nodded anyway. “I’m going to recommend that the crew members who’ve allegedly seen ghosts be given a medical exam and talk to Rung,” he said.

“Ouch,” Rodimus laughed. “You’re going to be very unpopular with our psychiatrist _and_ our CMO, increasing their workload like that without warning.”

“Each crew member must be prepared –“ Ultra Magnus started, speaking stiffly.

Rodimus clapped him on the shoulder. “I was kidding. Lighten up. Go see the relic. It’s actually pretty awesome, in a creepy sort of way. Or it is when the lights work, otherwise you’re just wandering around in giant dark spaces with a flashlight.”

“If my duties permit,” Ultra Magnus said, by which he meant he wasn’t going near the relic at all. There were plenty of qualified Autobots trying to extract information from it; his presence wasn’t required.

“I’m going to have Drift take a look anyway,” Rodimus said, having wandered over to the door.

“I’m sorry?”

“Just in case they’re really ghosts. And not a matter of everyone being overtired at once.” Rodimus grinned, and Ultra Magnus stifled a sigh.

“Do as you see fit,” he said, forcing the words out. In this one instance, it probably didn’t matter if the flaky ex-Decepticon – whom Ultra Magnus _could not arrest for war crimes_ – went wandering around waving his hands ineffectually at a problem. It would keep him occupied, while Ultra Magnus could try to get at the actual root of it with less distraction.

“No arguments? Wow.” Rodimus grinned yet again, and then hesitated.

“What is it?” Ultra Magnus asked.

“You don’t think Optimus came out this way, do you?” Rodimus asked, voice uncharacteristically quiet.

“I don’t think it likely, no.”

“Ah.” Rodimus sketched out little doodles on the doorframe with his finger, leaving no actual marks.  “It was probably a trick of the light, then, right?”

 

* * * 


	4. The Way It Goes

“Haunted,” Drift said carefully, unaware that he was mimicking Ultra Magnus’ reaction to the same news tone for tone.

“You’ve seen the reports, right?” Rodimus said, and started waving a stack of equipment around.

Drift gently confiscated the delicate pieces of machinery and listened to Rodimus’ slightly incoherent explanation of the myriad inexplicable happenings aboard the relic. “I see,” he said, when Rodimus finished.

“I want you to see what you can get out of it,” Rodimus said. “I know you’ve been in there, but this time I want you to check the aura.” Which was how Drift ended up stalking carefully through the darkened hallways, Rodimus in tow, peering into corners on the off chance of seeing a ghost.

“Have Perceptor and Mainframe gotten any closer to recovering the ship’s logs?” Drift asked as they ducked under a fallen bulkhead.

Rodimus shook his head, peering up at the ceiling. Drift followed his gaze, but there was nothing he could see. “Something very wrong happened here,” he said, voice thick with conviction. “I need to know what that was.”

“It might,” Drift said, “just this once, not be a bad thing to leave the mystery of the past to the past.”

“What if it’s something that happened to most of the Cybertronians who fled the war? What if it could happen to us? I have to know.” Rodimus gave the ceiling one last look and started walking again, feet crunching in the dust.

“The entire galaxy isn’t exactly uncharted,” Drift said. “And much of it isn’t friendly to Cybertronians, neutral or not.”

“Are you with me on this or not?” Rodimus demanded irritably.

“Hey.” Drift reached out and caught Rodimus by the hand, pulling him to a halt. “I’m with you,” he said, looking directly into Rodimus’ optics. “Whatever you decide to do, I’m with you.”

Rodimus smiled, a little hesitantly, and covered Drift’s hand with his. “Okay.” The grin returned, full force. “Let’s keep going, then, and see what we see.”

There were two teams working on power relays and the team on the bridge working on the internal systems, Drift reflected, his thoughts straying from the task at hand. The simple truth of the matter was that most of the crew of the Lost Light was far better at blowing things up than putting them back together – a natural consequence of millions of years of civil war.  Ability at causing chaos and mayhem notwithstanding, there were also a few teams cataloguing damage and testing the accuracy of the sensor networks; there had been discrepancies already discovered and no fewer than six near-misses as crew members expecting atmosphere had come across hard vacuum on the other side of a door.

“We could probably find anyone who fell out an airlock,” Rodimus said, and Drift blinked. He hadn’t realized he’d vocalized any of his thoughts.  “I mean,” Rodimus continued, “it’s not like anyone’s going to break orbit. This moon isn’t that big.”

“I’m not sure I find that comforting,” Drift said. While hard vacuum wasn’t fatal, it wasn’t exactly pleasant.

“Do you sense anything?” Rodimus asked.

“No,” Drift said. It wasn’t that he sensed auras, so to speak; he just felt that he was more in tune to the atmosphere generated by subtle clues in the environment than most of his peers. Currently, all the atmosphere was telling him was that it was cold and dark, and that emergency lighting was not at all conducive to creating a positive environment.

“Optimus?” Rodimus said, and broke into a run.

“Rodimus!” Drift shouted. Rodimus was _quick_ , and by the time Drift started after him, he’d already vanished around a corner.

When Drift reached the corner, Rodimus was nowhere to be seen. The corridors in that particular section were mazelike, a residential warren meant to house a complement of thousands, with no apparent grand design to keep any kind of order. Drift was left to stare down a six-way intersection with no way of knowing which one Rodimus had taken.

 _There’s dust on the floor,_ he reminded himself. _Rodimus must have left footprints._

Yet, when he looked down, there was no evidence of anyone having passed through the area. Just to be sure, Drift checked his own path.  Directly behind him was nothing but a blank wall.

“Rodimus!” he shouted, trying not to let apprehension into his voice. He knew where he’d come from; he was sure he hadn’t moved since entering the intersection. And yet, there were five paths in front of him and solid bulkheads behind. They weren’t even rusted, no evidence of corrosion.  “Rodimus!” he shouted again, hoping to get some sort of answer, but none came.

The floor was swept clean in the center, dust piling against the corners and floating from the ceiling.  Drift picked a hallway at random and started down it, activating his inter-Autobot radio. _Rodimus! Where are you?_

There was still no answer. Drift kept walking, carefully looking for any sign of Rodimus’ passage and finding none. The interface panels on the walls this deep were blank as well, the power relay system apparently not having been repaired enough to access non-essential systems; Drift tapped at one anyway in hope of accessing the internal sensor network, but it didn’t respond either.

A second intersection loomed out of the reddish-lit shadows, and Drift paused. This time he’d reached a simple crossroads, one corridor intersecting another at right angles. He backed up before he entered it, peering down each side. There was no sign of Rodimus, or anything else living.  Drift looked ahead, into the gloom, but he couldn’t see anything moving in the shadows.

Making a decision, Drift turned back. There had to be some indication of Rodimus’ sudden headlong flight down at least one of the hallways; he wasn’t exactly subtle about anything he did, and there was enough detritus in the environment to showcase careless passage down any given hallway. Comforted by what seemed like an eminently reasonable plan in the face of Rodimus’ continued comm silence, Drift moved toward the six-way intersection. _Five-way_ , he reminded himself. _It was five._

The corridor ahead of him ended abruptly, two hallways branching out to either side.  Drift narrowed his optics; he hadn’t gone past any intersections.  He’d stopped when he’d reached the first one, or was it the second. He shook his head. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that he was sure of two things – one, that he was in fact retracing his steps, and two, that he hadn’t seen this intersection before. “Scrap,” he muttered.

 _Perceptor, this is Drift,_ he sent over inter-Autobot radio. _I seem to be slightly, um, lost._ The radio crackled static, indicating an open channel, but Perceptor didn’t answer. Drift frowned. What time was it? His internal chronometer had blanked out without his noticing, and he had no idea how much time had passed while he and Rodimus traipsed around in the bowels of the rusting relic. Far more worrisome was that his chronometer had just ceased to function, but otherwise he felt fine. “Scrap,” he repeated, and tried to reach Perceptor again, and Mainframe, but neither of them answered.

Huffer’s team didn’t answer either, and neither did Dipstick’s. Drift knew for a fact that both of them were working on the power relays, unless he’d been down here for a lot longer than he thought. But without his internal chronometer working, he had no idea. Standing at the T-intersection, Drift tried reaching the survey teams as well, but no one answered.

“Scrap, scrap, scrap,” he muttered. “Is there something down here blocking my radio?” It wasn’t impossible.

The T-intersection wasn’t going anywhere, and neither would Drift if he didn’t start moving. “Rodimus!” he shouted again, with all the volume he could muster, and something rattled in his left storage compartment. _Of course!_

Inside the compartment was the last laser scalpel he’d confiscated from Rodimus, when the commander’s doodling had progressed beyond his desk and chair and started to appear on command consoles in the bridge.

“Show me where I’ve been,” he said to it, and carved an arrow in the bulkhead showing the direction he’d come from.  It pointed directly at the T-intersection.  Drift stared at it for a moment, as if daring it to warp and change before his eyes, but it simply sat there, smoking slightly.  He picked the left corridor at random and carved another arrow showing which way he’d gone, just around the corner.

The hallway was long and rapidly became narrower than any he’d seen before. Drift carved the arrows at regular intervals, showing where he’d been. The simple act was reassuring; he couldn’t possibly get any more lost than he already was.

When the hallway ended in a huge room, Drift was taken by surprise. He couldn’t see the ceiling for the shadows; the emergency lights in the floor didn’t illuminate anything much past eye level. Drift left a little star next to the arrow and stepped into the room.

An immediate impression of vastness permeated his senses, and if Drift hadn’t known better he would have said he was floating in deep space. But he could feel the floor, solidly beneath his feet, and he could see it anchoring him. “Rodimus!” he shouted, just in case, and a figure materialized out of the darkness.

“Rodimus?” he said again, but the silhouette was all wrong.

Wing stood, quietly solid in the gloom, hands held loosely at his side and Great Sword slung over his back. Drift reached over his own shoulders, groping for the sword he could feel pressed against his spinal strut. It was still there, the sword that had once belonged to Wing, the sword that he’d been given when Wing had sacrificed himself.

“Wing,” he said finally, hand closing on the hilt.

Wing shook his head slowly, stepping closer. Drift moved toward him, almost involuntarily.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and Wing reached out with one oddly graceful hand. His blunt fingers stretched toward Drift’s face, and Drift leaned in to a touch that never came. Wing’s hand started to dissolve, falling into fine dust.  The disintegration moved up his arm in a slow wave, and Drift lurched forward. “No!”

He grabbed Wing by the shoulders, or he tried, but wherever he touched Wing simply fell apart until there was nothing left.  Drift found himself on his knees, reaching for the empty ground, the low ceiling pressing in on him.  He curled his hands into fists and gritted his teeth.

“Wing,” he whispered again, folding in on himself.

“Drift!”

The voice was frantic and familiar.  Drift onlined his optics – when had he shut them off? – to see Rodimus standing over him. “You found me,” he said.

“Yes,” Rodimus said, extending a hand.  Drift took it and let himself be hauled to his feet. Rodimus checked him over, apparently searching for damage. “Are you okay?”

“Where did you go?” Drift asked, ignoring Rodimus’ question in favor of his own.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Rodimus said. “To answer your question, I didn’t go anywhere.”

“You shouted ‘Optimus’ and ran off,” Drift said, stepping back and crossing his arms. “I tried to follow you, but…” He trailed off. “But the corridors kept changing,” he said after an expectant pause.

“That’s not what happened at all,” Rodimus said.

“You didn’t see Optimus,” Drift said flatly.

“Okay, that happened, but I didn’t go far. I went to the next intersection, which, okay, was like, eight steps away, but when I turned around you were gone.” Rodimus peered at his face. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I… how long were you looking for me?” Drift asked.

“Your chronometer,” Rodimus started, and Drift realized that his chronometer was functioning perfectly. It had been nearly nine hours since Rodimus had vanished, or since he had, depending on whose version of events he was going to believe.

“Never mind.” Drift smiled slightly. “Good thing I had the laser scalpel with me.”

“What laser scalpel?”

Drift held up the laser scalpel, only to find his hand empty. “I had one,” he said, and checked his storage compartment.  The laser scalpel was still in it.  He picked it up. “This one. I had to carve arrows on the walls to keep track of where I’d been.”

Rodimus eyed him strangely. “We found you with the sensor network,” he said. “There weren’t any arrows.”

Drift would have put it down to coincidence, except that when he followed Rodimus back towards the cargo bay, nothing looked familiar. Absolutely none of the corridors had been part of their search, and he told Rodimus so.

“Okay, that’s it.” Rodimus activated his inter-Autobot radio, broadcasting widely enough that Drift could hear it too.  _To all the teams on board this relic. We’re done here. Everyone on board the shuttle and back to the Lost Light._

“Are you sure?” Drift asked.

“Something very wrong happened here,” Rodimus said in an echo of his earlier words. “Whatever it was, it can stay here. I’ll leave a warning buoy in orbit, in case anyone else wants to stop by.”

_Rodimus, we have a problem._

The voice over the radio belonged to Ultra Magnus; Drift wasn’t sure why he’d been included in the message, or perhaps Rodimus had simply retransmitted.

 _What problem?_ Rodimus sent back sharply.

 _Two problems_ , Ultra Magnus said. _The so-called ghost sightings have spread to the Lost Light._

“We’re caught up in it,” Drift whispered. “It’s too late.”

 _That’s one problem,_ Rodimus said. _What’s the second?_

_Sunstreaker is missing._


	5. Trick and Spin It

The interior of the relic was changing, Sunstreaker was sure of it. Corridors shifted space, closed off, opened up, or just ceased to exist. A vague fear that he would be trapped inside one of the sections as it winked out of being occupied the back of his mind, but he was more afraid for Bob than he was for himself; the Insecticon hadn’t chosen to come aboard the relic, and Sunstreaker had.

“Come on, boy,” he said, one hand resting on Bob’s head. Bob was sticking close to him, almost tripping him up as they moved deeper inside the relic. The dim light from his optics bounced off something gleaming, something that stood out from the dust and corrosion.

Sunstreaker picked up the plaque from the floor by its single clean corner, brushing the dust away from the rest of its surface. “Ark 20,” Sunstreaker read aloud, voice catching on the dust. He tried to clear his vocal processors, but the dust stubbornly remained, and he gave up. He had no idea what or who had been on the Ark 20 but none of the Ark series had been meant for use by neutral parties; it had to be an Autobot ship. 

Bob trilled questioningly, peering up at him, and Sunstreaker shrugged. “I have no idea,” he said, trying to ignore the burr in his voice. The relic – the Ark 20, apparently – was having adverse effects on his systems. “I think this might be important,” Sunstreaker said, tucking the plaque into one of his storage compartments.  It barely fit. Bob trilled again, inching toward one of the side corridors, but reporting the probable name of the ship could wait.

“Not that way,” Sunstreaker told him, or tried to. The dust in his throat seemed thicker, and he wasn’t sure exactly how clear his speech was. He wasn’t sure how much Bob understood, either, when it came down to it, but he wasn’t wandering the innards of the Ark 20 for Bob’s sake. “I told you to go home,” he added, and that came out pretty clearly.

The sudden pressure against his legs nearly overbalanced him, but what caught Sunstreaker’s attention was that Bob’s trilling had switched from coaxing to worried.  “I know, I know, but they’re not after you,” he explained for what seemed like the millionth time (it was only the 8th, he thought he remembered, but did that really matter?). “It’s safest down here.”

Sunstreaker knew that safety was relative, but he also knew that the Lost Light wasn’t. Voices had started filtering up from beneath the deck plates, and he’d thought for a few horrified hours that the manic paranoia that had ended with Red Alert being locked in cold storage had somehow solidified, lain in wait, and attached itself to him as its next victim, but that was ridiculous.

“We’re good, we just have to make sure…” he trailed off. He’d been searching for something in the silence, but now he couldn’t remember what it was, and the silence was gone.  Bob pushed him gently toward the same corridor, and Sunstreaker rounded on him. “No!” he said sharply, and something in his throat crumbled under the weight of the dust.

Mute. Sunstreaker was mute. He tried to clear the dust out again, but it was a futile effort. It was still better than the Lost Light, bright and full of Autobots he couldn’t trust. At least here he could count on the walls to shift, he didn’t have to worry about their motivations, and they didn’t stare at him with indefinable accusations in the optics they didn’t have.  Bob whined, and Sunstreaker scratched around the base of his antenna.

Whispering voices filled the next corridor, coming from maddeningly familiar silhouettes backlit against the warm emergency light. They were moving farther away, so slowly that he couldn’t see them shifting until he looked away, and then when he looked back the farthest silhouette was nearly out of sight. Sunstreaker turned to follow them, away from wherever Bob was trying to go. The Insecticon hesitated at the intersection, looking back and forth before it finally scurried after him. Sunstreaker rested a hand on Bob’s head, moving toward the source of the sounds. There were answers there. 

Sunstreaker had nearly reached the next intersection when Hunter stepped out of the shadows. He wasn’t whole and healthy this time; this was the Hunter as Sunstreaker had last seen him, when he’d pulled the plug and put Hunter out of his misery.

“Don’t scream,” Hunter said, coming closer with a mad light in the back of his eyes. “I need you to not scream.”

Lacking a voice, Sunstreaker did his level best to scream anyway.

* * *

“What are you _doing_ in here?” Ratchet demanded. 

“Huh?” Drift blinked up at him, optics slowly coming online.

Ratchet resisted the urge to bury his face in his hands; it wouldn’t help matters, and it certainly wouldn’t explain why the nominal third in command was recharging wedged into the space between Ratchet’s desk and the wall. Ratchet had nearly kicked him when he’d come in, distracted, because why would he think to look for mechs on the floor. “Why are you here?” he repeated.

“Looking for Sunstreaker,” Drift said, folding himself out of the impossibly small space into which he shouldn’t have been able to fit in the first place. He stretched, realigning his plating into its proper configuration.

“Under my desk?” Ratchet asked acidly. The day had started out wrong and gotten worse as it went on; between attempting to pin down the far too many Autobots allegedly seeing ghosts for a basic diagnostic and trying to get material samples from Magnus’ decontamination process in Shuttle Bay 3 (in case of some kind of contaminant, Magnus had not said), Ratchet had been staring down a mountain of frustration, and then Sunstreaker had gone missing. Given the total lack of anything obviously perilous in their immediate environment, a missing crew member had created a near-panic; clearly the crew felt that the lack of an obvious threat meant that there was something insidiously evil afoot, and not that Sunstreaker had just wandered off and forgotten to turn on his radio.  Ratchet was ready to attempt to beat sense into anyone close enough with a brick to the head, but so far no opportunities had presented themselves.

Drift all but hiding under his desk wasn’t helping matters.

“Uh, no,” Drift said. “I just… needed a place to rest.”

“At the risk of sounding like a glitched recording,” Ratchet said, “I’m going to repeat myself. Under my desk?”

Drift stared uncomfortably at the floor. Ratchet threw his hands in the air and stalked past him. 

“Was there something you needed?” he asked, trying to rein in his irritation as he checked the latest report Ultra Magnus had forwarded. Sunstreaker was the first crew member to apparently vanish, but he wasn’t the last. Three more had gone off the grid in the eighteen hours since Sunstreaker’s signal had disappeared. More missing people probably meant that there was, in fact, something threatening aboard the relic, but there was still no cause for panic.

“No,” Drift said, leaning wearily on the desk, and Ratchet ran through a mental list of the crew members who’d been reported as seeing ghosts. Drift’s name wasn’t on it.

“Are you all right?” he asked anyway.

“I just don’t know what to do,” Drift said, almost inaudibly.

Had the situation been different, Ratchet might have said something about Primus failing to act as a guide. As it was, he simply reached out and put a hand on Drift’s shoulder. Drift’s optics flicked over Ratchet’s shoulder and back again, and he squeezed Ratchet’s hand gently before ducking away.

“Sorry,” Drift said. “This isn’t your problem.”

“No, but you’ve found a way to make it my problem,” Ratchet said.  “I suggest you start by finding the missing crew members. Failing that, start tracking the haunted Autobots so I can drag at least one of them into the medibay.”

“Haunted Autobots?” Drift said, mouth twitching in what looked suspiciously like a smile.

“It has fewer syllables than ‘crew members who reported or were reported to have seen apparitions’,” Ratchet said. “As superstitious as the phrasing is.”

“Why a physical?” Drift asked, heading for the doorway.

“So I can rule out hallucinations stemming from a physical cause and make this Rung’s problem,” Ratchet said, and that got a real smile out of Drift.

“I’ll send Rodimus down,” Drift said.

The commander’s name hadn’t been on Ratchet’s list either. He grabbed Drift’s wrist, hauling him sharply backwards. “That wasn’t reported,” he said.

“He, ah, saw Optimus,” Drift admitted.

“And this wasn’t recorded in any official capacity?” Ratchet gripped Drift’s wrist harder, and Drift winced. Ratchet let go.

“You know Rodimus,” Drift offered as if it were some kind of excuse.

“Yes, I do, and that is exactly why-“ Ratchet broke off. “Do you know if anyone else experienced unreported hauntings?” he asked quietly, letting his anger seep into his voice.

Drift hesitated for a very long moment. “No,” he said finally. “No unreported hallucinations.”

Ratchet narrowed his optics. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” The door slid open. “I’ll send Rodimus down.” After another moment’s hesitation, Drift left, almost but not quite looking over his shoulder. Ratchet watched him go, cataloguing his movements. Drift seemed slightly off, lacking the shell of confidence he wore like a mask, and his joints seemed to be a little stiff. Ratchet nearly called him back, but checking on the two dozen crew members who had verified hallucinations had to come first – even if every single one of them was currently actively avoiding the medibay.

There were limits to Ratchet’s patience, and he had just reached them.  Five minutes without either Drift or Rodimus appearing in the doorway was the final straw; Ratchet rechecked the list of possibly-hallucinating crew members against the list of crew members without current clearance to leave the Lost Light and walked into the hallway.

The first thing to go right in far too long was that Ratchet found Trailbreaker less than three minutes later.

“Trailbreaker,” he said in greeting, and started herding him toward the medibay.

“What? I – wait, no, I’m supposed to –“ Trailbreaker started.

“No, you’re not.”  Ratchet gently pushed the mediator toward the door, not using too much force only because Trailbreaker wasn’t really resisting. He kept looking over his shoulder, until Ratchet finally asked what he was looking for.

“Nothing?” Trailbreaker said, the rising inflection at the end of the word making it seem like a question rather than a statement.

“Then why are you looking for it?” The medibay was right in front of them. Trailbreaker went through the doors without further protest, and Ratchet directed him toward an exam table. “Sit there. And wait.”

It took him less than thirty seconds to collect the equipment he needed, but when he turned around again, Trailbreaker was nowhere to be seen.  Ratchet put down his equipment and stalked toward the doors; his missing patient was right outside, as he’d guessed. There hadn’t been enough time for him to go far, unless Trailbreaker was going to start wandering through the vents. 

Ratchet made a mental note to haul Skids in next, before the ship’s resident amnesiac took it in his head to start hiding in the ceiling for no good reason.  Not that he actually expected Skids to take up residence in the ceiling, but it wouldn’t surprise him at this point.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he demanded.

“I thought I heard you out here,” Trailbreaker mumbled unconvincingly.

“Of course you did,” Ratchet said, tone as dry as he could make it. “Because I would send you into the medibay and then call you from the hallway.”

“I know what I heard,” Trailbreaker retorted, but he let Ratchet push him back onto the examination table.

The initial exam revealed nothing except that Trailbreaker’s mass had been slightly reduced. Even accounting for variable fuel levels – energon was heavier than one might expect – Trailbreaker was lighter than he should have been. Ratchet frowned.

“That’s not a good face,” Trailbreaker said from his position prone on the table, now looking worried.

“I don’t see anything immediately wrong,” Ratchet said.

“Then why are you making the face?” Trailbreaker levered himself up on one elbow. “That’s the Ratchet Has Bad News face.”

“I do _not_ have a bad news face,” Ratchet told him. “Stay there.”

“Can’t I come back later for more tests? Or not at all? If nothing’s wrong?” Trailbreaker swung his legs over the side of the table.

“I said I didn’t see anything immediately wrong, not that nothing was,” Ratchet snapped. “Lie down.”

Trailbreaker pulled his feet up toward his aft and sat more or less hunched over in as small of a space as he could occupy.

“And stop sulking,” Ratchet told him.

“I’m not sulking.”

The second battery of tests revealed nothing particularly conclusive, either, except for some gray dust lodged in places it shouldn’t have been. 

“Wow, that stuff really gets in there,” Trailbreaker said, looking at the sample Ratchet had swabbed out of his insides. “It must have gotten sucked in when I shifted to my alt mode.”

“Is this Magnus’s infamous dust?” Ratchet gave the swab the same look he might have given a particularly repugnant insect and took it over to the other side of the medibay for a more thorough analysis.

“It is,” Trailbreaker said. “It’s all over on the relic. Between you and me, I think Ultra Magnus set up the decontam chambers in Bay 3 just to keep us all from tracking dirt all over the Lost Light.”

“Right,” Ratchet said absently, still setting up the tests. “You can go for now, but don’t leave the ship.”

“I’m on one of the search teams,” Trailbreaker protested.

“And?” Ratchet started the first analysis sequence. “I’m not done with you. I’ll clear it with Ultra Magnus,” he added, before Trailbreaker could come up with another reason to go back to the relic and away from the medibay.

A sulky acquiescence was still an acquiescence, as unusual as it was for Trailbreaker to sulk or complain about anything that wasn’t his force field while sober, and at this point Ratchet was going to take what he could get.

The thought had barely crossed his mind when shouting interspersed with frantic chirping from the general area near the door told him that he was about to get far more than he’d anticipated.

“Ratchet!” It was Backstreet shouting; a distant corner of Ratchet’s mind noted that Backstreet had in fact been both cleared for search duty aboard the relic and also that Backstreet had been one of those on the list reported as seeing ghosts.  “Ratchet!” Backstreet shouted again.

“What?” Ratchet growled, and then he saw.  Backstreet had Sunstreaker awkwardly cradled in front of him, and Bob was rushing around his feet, chittering madly.  “What happened?” he asked, smoothly taking Sunstreaker’s limp body and placing it on the same table Trailbreaker had just vacated.

As Ratchet put Sunstreaker down, he had to stifle a curse; Sunstreaker was noticeably lighter than he should have been, enough that Ratchet was sure he could have lifted him with a single hand, but he _looked_ perfectly healthy. Except for the unconscious part. Bob tried to climb on the table to reach his friend, and Ratchet pushed him back down.

“That’s how we found him,” Backstreet said, hovering. “I don’t know what did that to him.”

“Back up,” Ratchet said, moving Backstreet out of the way. In his moment of inattention Bob scrambled up to the top of the table and nudged Sunstreaker.  The Insecticon chirped piteously, his cries becoming more distressed as Sunstreaker made no response.  “Get _down_ ,” Ratchet said, manhandling the Insecticon off the table. “Backstreet, keep him over there.”

“I – okay,” Backstreet said, clearly nervous.

Ratchet didn’t care; he stared down at the far too still Sunstreaker and started trying to figure out what had gone wrong.


	6. Return to Dust

“Trapped,” Ultra Magnus repeated. It felt like he’d been doing a lot of that lately. “Half the cargo hold was exposed to space. How can the shuttle be trapped?”

Rodimus spread his hands to the sides, shrugging helplessly. “There’s a new wall? I don’t know, Magnus, but none of us are going anywhere.”

For a brief moment, Magnus almost wished he’d listened to his instincts and pulled every crew member off the relic when Sunstreaker had gone missing. At least that way, only one Autobot would have been lost, instead of the nineteen who were now stuck inside a rusted-out hulk in a back corner of the galaxy. “I suggest we find a way,” he said.

“At least we found Inferno and Smokescreen?” Rodimus offered.

The two of them had been the search team that had gone missing; they’d been searching for Tracks, who was still nowhere to be seen. Smokescreen was currently unconscious in the shuttle under Hoist’s care and with Inferno hovering protectively over him. Convincing Inferno not to shoot at the search team that found _him_ had taken enough time and attention that apparently no one had noticed the cargo bay closing itself off, and convincing Inferno that no one was going to disassemble Smokescreen had taken even longer.

“Something aboard this vessel has affected everyone to board it,” Ultra Magnus said. “If we cannot leave soon, I do not believe any of us will fare any better than Sunstreaker and Smokescreen.”

“What, everyone except you?” Rodimus glared at him suspiciously.

“That’s not what I meant,” Ultra Magnus said in what he hoped was a soothing tone, although it was exactly what he’d meant. He’d specifically cleared only people who’d already spent significant time aboard the relic to act as search and rescue teams for the missing Autobots; the trends he’d noticed left him reluctant to expose more of his people to whatever was on board than necessary, but supervision had also been necessary. He had hoped to be able to retrieve the missing personnel quickly, before his own exposure led to the same hallucinations and erratic behavior exhibited by his current companions. That hope had been dashed.

“You’re trying to undermine me,” Rodimus hissed, displaying the same sort of paranoia as Inferno and – presumably – Sunstreaker and Smokescreen. Ultra Magnus had seen signs of it in four of the remaining seven Autobots currently occupying the shuttle, and in Cosmos when he’d ferried Backstreet and the unconscious Sunstreaker out of the relic toward the Lost Light.

“I fully support your leadership,” Ultra Magnus said, still trying for a calm and even tone. Three search teams of two Autobots each plus Tracks made seven Autobots still unaccounted for, even if six of said seven were currently reliably pinging through the comm system when signaled. “What’s our next move?”

“Next move?” Rodimus, apparently at least partially derailed from his paranoia, frowned. “Right. Because of the trapped. And Tracks.”  He crossed his arms. “The sensor grid,” he said. “We need the sensor grid working, and we need to know what in Primus’ name happened to this slagging ship before it crashed.”

As the search teams were composed of more or less the same crew members as had been working on restoring ship’s systems, Ultra Magnus wasn’t entirely sure they would see much success. “We should move to the bridge,” he said.

“Some of us should –“ Rodimus started.

“No,” Ultra Magnus interrupted. “We all need to remain together. Separating is how we lost track of four crew members,” he reminded Rodimus.

“That’s… actually a good point.” Rodimus glanced around. “What about Smokescreen and Inferno?” he asked, lowering his voice. Ultra Magnus followed his gaze. At some point during their conversation, Inferno had gone offline. “Gears can take them,” Rodimus said, answering his own question. With his usual smile, he clapped Ultra Magnus on the shoulder and explained the plan to the rest of the Autobots in the shuttle. Before Ultra Magnus could do more than blink at the very effective handling of the immediate situation, they were all standing at one of the access hatches.

“At least we’ll die together, and we’ll know what kills us,” he said, aiming for wry humor.

“Oh, Magnus,” Rodimus said, and put a gentle hand on his arm. “I’ll fix this before the effects get any worse. You’ll get better.” He turned away and Magnus could feel his inter-Autobot radio activate, although he couldn’t hear what Rodimus was saying. 

“That was supposed to be funny,” he muttered too quietly for the sound to carry.

“The other three teams will meet us on the bridge,” Rodimus said, and opened the door. Later, Ultra Magnus would remember the quiet assurance in Rodimus’ voice and how it had been completely wrong; the whole of the group never made it to the bridge.

The massive wall blocking the shuttle slide aside along with the access hatch, what atmosphere there was in the cargo bay rushing out with a deafening howl and pulling half the Autobots with it. Ultra Magnus was close enough to the hatch to grab the frame with one hand, and close enough to Mainframe to catch him in the other. The torrent of atmosphere flooding through the hatch was even stronger than the initial blast, and Ultra Magnus could feel his servos creaking in protest as he pushed Mainframe inside.

“Till all are one,” Rodimus panted beside him, and he was clinging to the frame, too. He’d clamped his legs around Hoist and was pulling both of them into the ship, inch by agonizing inch. Ultra Magnus added his strength, looking back only when both of them were safely clinging to the interior of the relic. No one else was left.

Hoist grabbed Ultra Magnus’ wrist, but the wind suddenly died down to a trickle. Ultra Magnus hit the floor with a jarring thud despite the low gravity. He stood, testing the atmosphere.  “The entire relic has vented,” he said. “We don’t have much time.”

The cold more than the lack of atmosphere would send them into involuntary stasis before much longer had passed; Ultra Magnus could see realization dawning on Rodimus’ face. “At least we can get out now,” he said, and the walls rolled into place around the cargo bay. “Aw, what. That’s just not fair.”

A quick message to the Lost Light at least ensured that the eight Autobots who’d been pulled onto the surface of the moon would be collected and returned home.  “No, I don’t want anyone blasting holes into the relic,” Ultra Magnus replied to a very irrational response to his direct orders. “No one else is to come down here.”

Rodimus gave him a quizzical look. “No cavalry?”

“And risk the entire crew getting trapped and lost?” Ultra Magnus shook his head. “We should proceed with the original plan.”  Surprisingly, Rodimus didn’t argue.

The cargo bay door wasn’t the only one that had gone haywire; between the bay and the bridge, Ultra Magnus saw the offline remains of two of the search teams crushed between hatch and frame. None of the other seemed to notice their dust-covered crewmates lying mangled in the corridors. Ultra Magnus made the decision to return to them later – if they could be helped, it wasn’t going to happen now, and anyone dead could wait.

The floor shuddered underneath them as they walked. “Watch your step,” Rodimus was saying just as the floor below Hoist gave way.  The field medic fell, crashing through uncountable levels downward. 

Ultra Magnus peered over the edge of the hole. “We go on,” he said.

“And just leave him there?” Rodimus demanded.

“We can’t help him if we can’t help ourselves,” Ultra Magnus reminded him.

“We’re accessing the sensors so we _know where everyone is_ ,” Rodimus pointed out, gesticulating at the gap. “We know where Hoist is. He’s right there-“ He broke off, staring with fully dilated optics at the undamaged floor.  “Bridge. Now.”

They were nearly at the bridge when Ultra Magnus found Tracks. He didn’t think either Rodimus or Mainframe would fail to notice the flier, though, mostly because he was strung up in the center of the corridor like a warning flag. Rusty fluid spattered his skin, and his optics were dark. His limbs were barely still attached to his body, the joints delicately fastened to wires running into the walls and ceiling. Ultra Magnus couldn’t tell whether or not he was still alive; his chest was a crushed ruin.

“Oh, that’s just wrong,” Rodimus said, and stepped carefully around his crewman. Mainframe shrugged and followed.  Ultra Magnus stared at the both of them, wondering if he was the only one horrified at the way Tracks had been all but dismembered, and knowing he was horrified at Rodimus’ callous disregard for a fellow Autobot.

Ultra Magnus carefully unstrung Tracks from the wiring, placing him against the wall. “We’ll be back,” he said, although Tracks probably couldn’t hear him.

“Magnus, see if you can get at the logs,” Rodimus said. “Mainframe and I are going to try for the sensor network.”

“Right,” Ultra Magnus said. “Here’s to knowing why we’re going to die.”

“No one is going to die,” Rodimus said sharply. “Not on my watch.”

Ultra Magnus did not look at the potentially deceased Tracks.

Ratchet chose that moment to contact them via inter-Autobot radio. _Rodimus, you need to get off that ship right now. I’m quarantining the crew._

 _You’re what?_ Rodimus jerked upright, staring at the panel in front of him. _Quarantine? Why?_

Electricity crackled across the paneling, leaping toward Rodimus. Mainframe crashed into him from the side, the two of them barely missing the charge. Ratchet’s answer was lost in waves of static, the radio filtering back on with the words – _Ark 20._

“This isn’t a neutral ship,” Ultra Magnus said aloud. “This is an Autobot vessel of war.”


	7. The Ghost Is The Machine

Every door on the Ark 20 slammed shut with a single resounding crash, the walls remaining so perfectly still that not a single speck of dust was disturbed. Rodimus flinched, instinctively trying to protect his audio receptors with his hands. The echoes faded, slowly, and Rodimus lowered his hands.  It did nothing to stop the ringing in his audio receptors, a slow whine that eventually resolved itself into an inter-Autobot radio transmission.

 _Can you hear me?_ Ratchet was sending. _Rodimus! Ultra Magnus!_ He sounded almost frantic.

 _I copy_ , Rodimus sent back. _Hang on a minute, I’ll be right back. Do what you have to do._ He had faith that Ratchet would make sure no one else was affected, that he would keep the crew safe.

_Rodimus!_

The rest of whatever Ratchet had been going to say was lost as Rodimus switched off his inter-Autobot radio.  “What do you mean, vessel of war?” he said to Magnus. He had to know why Ratchet wanted to quarantine the crew members who’d been aboard the relic.

“Do you know why I can hear you?” Ultra Magnus asked, and Rodimus frowned. Whatever was wrong with the ship had affected his XO far more quickly than it had anyone else; Ultra Magnus had been increasingly irrational since boarding, and he had now dropped straight into incoherency.

“You can hear me because I’m talking to you,” Rodimus said, trying very hard to keep any trace of condescension out of his voice.

“Sound waves travel through air, Rodimus,” Magnus said, and he did sound condescending. “All of the atmosphere was vented.”

The ship’s access hatches had blown open and vented the air. Rodimus rubbed at the spot above his optics, trying to order his memories. It had happened while they were trying to reach the bridge – or had they still been in the cargo bay? He couldn’t remember.

“Are you listening to me?” Ultra Magnus said, a heavy hand descending on Rodimus’ shoulder and jolting him back into the present.

“We have air again,” Rodimus said, his sensors confirming it. It was barely there, atmospheric pressure so low as to be almost off the scale entirely, but there was just enough to carry sound waves. “Is life support online?”

“It shouldn’t have regenerated the air this quickly.” Magnus was at one of the consoles, tapping away; Rodimus had no idea what he was doing, and Magnus wasn’t talking. He wasn’t answering, just pressing buttons. The ringing in Rodimus’ audio receptors intensified until he could barely hear himself speak.

“Mainframe,” Rodimus tried, but the programmer was huddled in a corner, and Rodimus suddenly registered his low voice repeating strings of mathematical formulas in a monotone. “Slag me,” he growled. It was clearly up to him if both of his companions were out of commission.

“Rodimus,” Ultra Magnus said patiently, and Rodimus eyed him suspiciously. “Can you hear me?”

“You’re not making any sense,” Rodimus pointed out, aiming for the level of reasonable he would have to maintain, if his rational and law-abiding officer had gone completely off the deep end.  He edged toward one of the doors; if he could get them back to the Lost Light, everything would be fine. He just had to get all of the crew in one place and then he would keep them all safe.

“Rodimus, we’re on board the Ark 20,” Ultra Magnus said, looking worried. He had no cause to be worried; he was the one who was in need of saving. “Do you know what that means?”

Rodimus decided to play along for the moment, still eying the door. It was closed tightly and showed no signs of wanting to spontaneously open. “It was one of the ships named after the lost Ark,” he said. “There were a lot of them. So what?”

Far too many ships had been named after the fabled lost Ark for the name to hold any real weight; they’d been stationed all over during the war and it wasn’t unheard of for ships to go missing. Sometimes debris was found years later, and sometimes the ship was simply listed as presumed destroyed. It wasn’t relevant, and Rodimus had no idea why Magnus kept insisting that it was.

“The Ark _20_ ,” Ultra Magnus said, putting peculiar emphasis on the number. Rodimus blinked; the number meant nothing to him. He knew the general mission parameters and partial crew rosters for most of the ships designated Ark, but 20 was a total blank. He’d never had reason to notice the information gap before, but it suddenly seemed ominous.  “The Ark 20 was a research vessel,” Ultra Magnus continued, disrupting his train of thought.

“You just called it a vessel of war,” Rodimus pointed out, pleased at having found a definite inconsistency. He tapped at the door, which remained stubbornly closed.

“Yes,” Ultra Magnus said, interposing himself between Rodimus and the door.  Rodimus took a step back and looked up at the other Autobot, confused. “Of biological and chemical warfare,” Ultra Magnus clarified.

Understanding dawned. “You mean this ship was used to develop biological weapons,” Rodimus said, and then took the thought to its next reasonable step. “Biological weapons to use against Decepticons.”

“Yes,” Ultra Magnus confirmed, and he didn’t have to point out that any virus that could kill a Decepticon would also be deadly to an Autobot.

“Wait.” Rodimus narrowed his optics and pointed an accusing finger. “Why do you know that? I don’t know that. No one knows that.”

The thought that Ultra Magnus was farther gone than Rodimus had suspected crossed his mind, quickly drowned out by a sudden fear that this wasn’t Ultra Magnus standing in front of him at all. Rodimus shook his head. He couldn’t fall into the trap of suspecting his own crew members, not if he was going to keep them all alive. Trust was important. Trust was key.

“I have access to a great deal of classified information as the Duly Appointed Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord,” Ultra Magnus was saying, and that was a good enough explanation for Rodimus. “More importantly, I’ve accessed part of the ship’s log.”

The log was important, too. “What happened to this ship?” he asked, unconsciously straightening his spinal strut into something resembling his normal posture.

The closest viewscreen flickered to life, seconds and half-seconds of unrelated footage flashing across the display. The images were grainy, the visible faces and forms blurred so much as to be unrecognizable. Even the voices were garbled as the audio feed hissed and sputtered with static. Rodimus smacked the console next to the screen with an open palm and it finally resolved itself into a single image, an Autobot with an unmistakable air of command. His face was too distorted to make out, but his quietly confident voice came through clearly.

 _“Ship’s Log, Date … City Commander … speaking. … mission parameters … going well.  Development of seven new strains is under way. Metrostar has assured me that containment will not be an issue.”_ The shadowy figure of the City Commander leaned closer to the screen, as if about to add something to the log, and the picture dissolved into nothing.

Rodimus frowned, something about the brief record catching his attention, but the display was already switching to a new sequence.

 _“…breach in containment. The medibay has been sealed off, but so far no one shows signs of contamination.”_ The City Commander’s voice was less confident than it had been, ragged around the edges with the slightest bit of strain. He laughed, and the playback dissolved into static again.

“This isn’t right,” Rodimus said.

The images marched onward, a sequence of images from around the ship. A few were familiar; the cargo bay, as its walls rusted through in what seemed like microseconds, and one of the medibays, full of healthy-looking patients and half-rusted corpses. A few garbled words were audible in the City Commander’s once-calm voice, almost nothing intelligible, all of it harsh. _“Designed to avoid detection,”_ he said, and _“resists treatment.”_ Dry words for the horror on the screen, as Autobot bodies rusted to nothing in the space of moments.

The images slowed, the individual sequences lasting longer. Some of the newly-infected fled invisible threats, others threw themselves at solid walls. A few flung themselves into deep space, choosing the inevitable eternal stasis lock over a slower death, but most remained on board the ship as the contagion spread.

“The dust,” Rodimus murmured. “We’ve been walking through dead people.” He turned to Ultra Magnus as images of all the empty, dusty rooms flashed behind his optics. The medibay with its grayish rust piled higher than anywhere else on the ship, the corridors with their centers almost clean, and the bridge still holding the finally mortal remains of the City Commander who had overseen a disaster – they were the answer to where the crew had gone. The crew hadn’t vanished, it had simply dissolved.

The log was still playing, a final brief linking of images and audio.  The nameless City Commander sat in profile, the right side of his face clearly visible, features clean and bright and without the slightest hint of rust as he spoke.

_“…strain 5.  Metrostar has been compromised. Repeat, Metrostar has been compromised. The virus is in the ship.”_

The City Commander bent forward, shaking, and dust trickled from his optic to fall in a glittering rain toward the floor.

_“No hope remains for us. I’ve done the only thing I can; I’ve hidden Metrostar, hidden our secret weapon where no one will ever find it. The slagging spawns of glitches who thought they could plot against me will never have it now, and if they find it, the virus will kill them as surely as it has destroyed all of us.”_

He turned toward the screen, and Rodimus took an involuntary step backwards. The other half of his face was missing, gutted, the surface fallen away to reveal the hollowness underneath his unblemished skin. The image froze, lingering for a few moments before fading to gray.

“The Ark 20 is alive,” Ultra Magnus said, apparently unaffected by the nauseating sight. “It’s a Metrotitan.”

“That’s your takeaway,” Rodimus said flatly. “Not that this was a research station for a plague that _rots us from the inside out_. Your takeaway is that…” He lost his voice as the implications hit. “The ship is alive. The ship has been alive _the whole time_.”

“I know it sounds absurd,” Ultra Magnus started.

“No, it makes perfect sense. It was trying to keep us out the whole time!” Rodimus understood the accidents now, the airlocks opening to expel the crew members before they could be infected with Strain 5. The ship – the Metrotitan – Metrostar had been trying to keep the Autobots alive, despite being infected itself. “But it’s too late. It’s too late for all of us.”

Rodimus started to laugh, and once he had started, he could not stop.


	8. Inside the Shell

“That’s what you said about the _last_ Metrotitan,” Rewind said accusingly.

Chromedome shrugged helplessly. “It _is_ a special situation. The ship’s logs are hopelessly scrambled; the best – the only – way to learn what they already tried is for me to read its memories.”

“You said you’d stop.” Rewind put a small hand on Chromedome’s chest. “You know what this does to you.”

“There’s no other way to save your life.” Chromedome stepped back, and Rewind’s hand hung in the air for a moment before it dropped limply to his side.

“It’s not my life I’m worried about,” he said softly.

“I know,” Chromedome said, just as softly, and Rewind moved forward.

Drift looked away, not wanting to intrude further on what was obviously a private moment even if they were all in a public place. He gave them a few more moments before sending a nudge over the inter-Autobot radio.

“Chromedome,” he said out loud, when the other Autobot glanced up.  “It’s time.”

Rewind’s measured gaze promised hell itself if Chromedome didn’t come back intact. Drift nodded slightly in acknowledgement and radioed the clearance code for Chromedome’s passage from the medibay to Shuttle Bay 3.

“I don’t like it,” Ratchet said, after the doors had closed behind the mnemosurgeon.

“Magnus’ orders,” Drift said. “If there’s any more information on the virus on the Ark 20, Chromedome’s the best shot at getting it.”

“What’s to stop him from going missing, too?” Ratchet retorted.

“Metrostar has no further reason to hide individuals,” Drift said with conviction he felt right down to his skeletal structure. “It knows we’re trying to help it.”

Ratchet just stared at him. “You think the Metrotitan was hiding Autobots on purpose.”

“Yes,” Drift said, edging closer to Ratchet. “When it couldn’t keep us out, it was left with a choice. It couldn’t decide whether mercy meant physically protecting us or killing us quickly, the virus has damaged it so badly. So it tried to do both.”

“Are you sure there are no crewmembers – aside from Rodimus – with unreported hallucinations?” Ratchet said after a moment.

Given that he didn’t feel that the manifestation of his guilt in the darkness counted as a hallucination, Drift shook his head. “You have the complete list.”

“Let me know if and when Chromedome sends any potentially useful data,” Ratchet said, and moved carefully back toward the populated area of the medibay.

Drift took up a position near the locked door and considered the situation again.  The Autobots who’d displayed the most severe symptoms had been grouped in the medibay, while the rest of those who’d gone to the relic were confined to Shuttle Bay 3.  The bay was also the point of exit and entry for shuttles retrieving crew members from the relic. Drift himself was in the medibay to coordinate between the ship and the command chain down on the moon’s surface.

The rest of the crew was more or less confined to quarters for the duration of the incident, since no one knew how, exactly, the virus spread. Ambulon, not having had direct contact with any of the crew members who’d been on the Ark 20, was tasked with keeping track of the physical condition of those outside the medibay and the shuttle bay, while Ratchet and First Aid had locked themselves in the medibay in search of some kind of cure.

For a while, Drift considered that if the virus spread by touch or just through the air, they were all probably dead anyway. There wasn’t much else to do except wait, and listen to the sound of the wind.

“Drift, a moment, please,” Ratchet said, his words and tone for once approximating courtesy.

“What can I do for you?” Drift asked, his optics refocusing.

“I need to calibrate some instruments.” Ratchet indicated that Drift should follow him towards an exam table. “If you would sit there.”  He wasn’t exactly asking, going by his tone, but starting an argument in the medibay wasn’t part of the image Drift was trying to project. There was no reasonable objection he could find, either.

“I live to serve, doctor,” Drift said lightly, and climbed on the table.

Ratchet apparently had a number of instruments that weren’t in proper working order; if Drift hadn’t known better, he would have thought the CMO was giving him the same physical exam he’d been avoiding since returning from the relic. _Ratchet wouldn’t lie to you, though_ , he reassured himself, and let him continue his increasingly invasive calibration work.

“Drift, I have to ask you this directly.” Ratchet positioned himself in front of Drift’s optics. It sounded as if he’d been trying to get Drift’s attention for a while.

“Yes?”

“Have _you_ been experiencing visual or auditory hallucinations?”

“I told you, I haven’t seen anything.” Drift sat up, swinging his feet to the ground.

“No dead comrades, no former enemies, no sounds that you shouldn’t be hearing?” Ratchet glanced down at the datapad in his hand and then looked back at him expectantly.

The wind was out of place, Drift realized, and for a brief second it howled loud enough to drown out the sound of the full medibay.  “Are we venting atmosphere?” he asked when it had died down. There was still air in the room, though, according to his sensors. He started to climb back off the exam table to find the leak anyway.

“Stage two,” Ratchet said, and Drift frowned. “We’re not venting atmosphere,” Ratchet added, as if that explained anything.

“Stage two of _what_?” Drift asked, still half on the exam table.

“This so-called Strain Five seems to have five stages,” Ratchet said quietly. “During the initial stage of infection, the patient experiences visual hallucinations. In the second stage, those hallucinations begin to include auditory components. Stage three involves paranoia, and stage four is reached when the patient is rendered comatose by internal damage.”

Drift didn’t have to ask what stage five was. “You think I have this… this infection.”

“I’m sorry.” Ratchet looked down. “I wish I could tell you something else.”

“I knew I’d be dying before you said something nice to me,” Drift said, grinning at Ratchet’s indignant expression.

“You…” Ratchet spluttered, and then calmed himself. “Why did you hide your symptoms?” he asked, much more evenly.

“Someone has to give the appearance of both strength and leadership to prevent panic,” Drift said. “With both Rodimus and Ultra Magnus on board the Ark 20, that leaves me.”

Apparently his answer caught Ratchet off guard, because the medic just stared at him. “Excuse me,” he said abruptly, and walked over to where First Aid was running some sort of test.  Drift watched him go.

* * *

Ultra Magnus had reached a sort of understanding with Metrostar. The massive titan couldn’t – or wouldn’t – speak, but if politely asked, he would open a single hatch at a time and allow Ultra Magnus to pass unimpeded with a single companion.

Bringing in the two search teams he’d found all but crushed in some of the larger access hatches, Tracks, and Brainstorm outside the cargo bay was therefore a lengthy but ultimately not a difficult task.  Difficult came into play when it came to convincing Rodimus to accompany the six incapacitated Autobots back to the Lost Light.

“Atomizer is still missing. So is Jackpot. And Hoist. And we know where Hoist fell,” Rodimus said stubbornly.

“I can find them,” Ultra Magnus said, patiently and calmly and reasonably. He was fairly sure he could use his newfound rapport with the Metrotitan to tap into the sensor network, such as it was. “You should take care of the Autobots here. They’ll need protecting.”

“Don’t patronize me,” Rodimus snapped. “Nothing is going to happen to them between here and the Lost Light.”

“You’re right,” Ultra Magnus said, trying a different tack. “I’m sorry.”

Rodimus gave him another suspicious look.

“I worry about keeping you safe, too,” he said, dropping his voice. “That’s my duty as your second in command.”

Rodimus reached over and wrapped his arms around Ultra Magnus, who stiffened and froze, unsure how to respond to the distinctly non-Cybertronian gesture. “I don’t want you to worry,” Rodimus said.

“What are you doing?” Ultra Magnus asked carefully, trying to extricate himself from Rodimus without blatantly rejecting his friend and superior officer’s apparent peace offering.

“It’s called a hug, Magnus. It’s a human thing. It shows affection.” Rodimus squeezed; not tightly, but enough that it was beginning to make Ultra Magnus uncomfortable.

“I know what a hug is,” he said; he’d learned quite a bit about humans from Verity.  “What I don’t know is why-“

“Shut up and accept it.”

Relaxing under Rodimus’ grip was extraordinarily difficult; Ultra Magnus made himself do it. Rodimus smiled slightly and let go, and Ultra Magnus took a very small step back. “Will you please accompany Tracks and the others back to the Lost Light?”

The cagey look in Rodimus’ eyes when he agreed was all too familiar; Ultra Magnus didn’t know what he was plotting, but at least for the moment Rodimus would be safely out of the Metrotitan’s grasp and one step closer to treatment for the virus.

Just to make sure, Ultra Magnus waited in the vacuum of the moon’s surface until the shuttle carrying Chromedome landed and helped load the six incapacitated bots. Rodimus climbed aboard the shuttle, just as he had promised, and the door closed. Ultra Magnus stared at it until it was out of sight before he turned to Chromedome.  “This way,” he said.

Finding the Metrotitan’s brain while it was in its alt mode wasn’t the most straightforward task Ultra Magnus had ever had, but he had a working idea of where it was most likely to be.

“Brain quest,” Chromedome murmured, and Ultra Magnus looked at him sideways.

“Please don’t call it that,” he said.

The Metrotitan’s brain wasn’t in what Ultra Magnus thought was the most likely location, but Hoist was. The field medic was huddled in a darkened corner, curled into as small of a space as he could possibly occupy, and he lashed out when Ultra Magnus came close enough.

“Hoist, it’s me,” Ultra Magnus said, but Hoist was beyond reason.

“Stage three,” Chromedome said. Having heard Ratchet’s list, Ultra Magnus nodded in agreement.

“You’re not Autobots,” Hoist hissed. “Autobots wouldn’t have left me alone.”

Ultra Magnus narrowed his optics. “We came back for you.”

“Lies!” Hoist scrambled to his feet, and Ultra Magnus had an idea.

By asking Metrostar to open the appropriate doors, he managed to herd Hoist onto the surface of the moon.  Somewhat to his surprise, Metrostar cooperated even with Chromedome present. Either it was a symbol of trust, or the titan’s brain was corroding more quickly. 

Once outside, Chromedome provided both a distraction and a safety net while Ultra Magnus incapacitated and restrained Hoist.  “We’ll be back for you,” he said, trying to be reassuring. He knew he wasn’t particularly good at it, but Hoist stopped struggling for a moment.

“Any other thoughts on where the brain is?” Chromedome asked.

“One,” Ultra Magnus said, and that was when Metrostar began trying to impede their progress. It wasn’t clear if the titan was trying to eject them or simply kill them, but Ultra Magnus had learned how it thought and what it was likely to do. He led Chromedome deeper into the ship, through the obstacles, until they were finally standing before its brain module.

The Metrotitan’s brain was falling apart, glittering rust covering vast swathes of its surface.

“Is there enough there to work with?” Ultra Magnus asked softly.

“I hope so,” Chromedome said. Neither of them mentioned contagion; Chromedome had already been exposed to the virus, and Ultra Magnus had pointedly not asked whether or not he’d been displaying symptoms.

“Do what you have to do. I’ll be back.” He was fairly sure the Metrotitan wouldn’t be able to harm Chromedome while the two of them were interfacing, and he still had two crew members to find.

The sensor network was frozen when he tried to access it, but it had registered Autobot signals and enough of a location was visible on the display for him to get a general location. Getting to them was another matter, with Metrostar’s body held rigidly still during Chromedome’s procedure, but Ultra Magnus eventually managed to carry both of them outside. Neither of them fought, beyond Atomizer’s feeble attempt to fire off a crossbow bolt.

Hoist remained where Ultra Magnus had left him; he didn’t acknowledge the presence of his crewmates, although Ultra Magnus could see his optics flickering and knew he was still awake. Just to be safe, Ultra Magnus made sure Atomizer and Jackpot were restrained as well, and then checked his internal chronometer.  All three of them still had time before the vacuum forced a stasis lock, but he radioed for pickup before returning to the Ark 20 anyway.

The doors started to slide open when he got within three decks of Chromedome.  Unsure whether that was good news or bad, Ultra Magnus moved faster. He found Chromedome leaning against a wall, joints locked.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Fine,” Chromedome said, but it took him two tries to get upright, and three false starts before he crossed the floor. “I have… information to relay.” His voice was distant, but he wasn’t displaying the blank and paranoid expression that the victims of the virus had worn. Ultra Magnus moved him out of the relic before the ship could change its mind about letting them leave.


	9. Smothered

Ratchet tapped his fingers against the table, glaring at nothing in particular.

“If we wait much longer, there won’t be enough of Sunstreaker left to repair,” First Aid said. “And he’s not the only one.”

The passengers on the most recent shuttle to return from the Ark 20 were all in the medibay, some on direct spark support; if the current rate of progression continued – and Ratchet saw no reason that it should not – he was going to run out of recharge slabs before the end of the day. It was then anyone’s guess as to how long it would take for those worst afflicted to die without proper treatment. Sunstreaker’s case was the most advanced, but he was stubbornly clinging to life.

“It’s not a matter of waiting,” Ratchet snapped. It wasn’t that he hadn’t seen rust-based viruses before; Delphi alone would have been enough for one lifetime. Methods for slowing and reversing the decay they caused existed, antigens and binding agents and more, and Ratchet had explored them all.  It was just that none of the standard corrective measures worked on any of the cultures. “Everything we’ve tried so far has either failed completely or increased the rate of corrosion.”

First Aid was silent for a moment. “Bob seems to be immune,” he said, for at least the twelfth time.

“I know that.” Ratchet drummed his fingers on the table more loudly than before and shifted his gaze to the Insecticon. Bob was curled around Sunstreaker, purring softly. Attempts to remove it had gone badly, and Ratchet had eventually given up. He couldn’t do anything for Sunstreaker at this point; the pet’s presence, if Sunstreaker could hear it, might be comforting. Ratchet hated that his only course of action was to hope that Sunstreaker’s audio receptors were active enough to hear the wordless crooning of an abomination of nature. “It doesn’t help.”

Getting a sample of Bob’s tissues to test with some of the pathogen hadn’t been easy, either; First Aid had eventually explained – as if the Insecticon could understand – that it was to help Sunstreaker, and Bob had allowed itself to be scraped and prodded. The pathogen simply hadn’t taken to the samples; Ratchet couldn’t be sure whether it was because the Insecticon was differently built or because it had been a failure of construction to begin with.

Either way, the information was doing little good, if any. While the Insecticon’s tissue was either retarding or preventing the pathogen’s destructive effects, Ratchet couldn’t cultivate it to create even a stopgap treatment, and he couldn’t exactly carve up the Insecticon to get more of it.

At least, Ratchet reflected, the Lost Light itself wasn’t starting to rust. He’d been afraid that, like the Ark 20, the Lost Light would begin to decay as the pathogen rooted itself in the ship’s walls, but apparently the pathogen didn’t affect inanimate objects. Small blessings, Drift probably would have said, except that Drift was once again wedged underneath Ratchet’s desk and this time he’d refused to come out. Ratchet had eventually decided to let him be; arguing with the nominal third in command while the ship’s commander lay comatose on a recharge slab wouldn’t have been good for morale.

“The shuttle is on its way back,” First Aid offered tentatively, interrupting Ratchet’s train of thought.

“I know that, too.” Ratchet had heard the same transmission; he also knew that Ultra Magnus had retrieved the final missing crew members, all of whom were suffering the effects of the Strain Five pathogen.

First Aid eyed him sideways and moved toward the most recent failed culture, as if he could learn something new from it. Ratchet headed toward his desk; the nominal third in command hiding underneath it probably wasn’t good for morale either.

“Drift. Come on out of there.” No answer. Drift was facing the wall, and it was impossible to tell whether or not he’d progressed to stage four, in which case he wouldn’t struggle when removed from the desk. Ratchet crouched down and reached out, touching Drift’s shoulder.  “Hey.”

“Rodion. Delphi. This is getting to be a habit,” Drift said, looking over.

Ratchet determined that Drift was still solidly in stage three.  “Then you’ll probably survive this time, too, if past trends continue.”

Drift laughed. “You wouldn’t let me die slowly, would you?”

Ratchet blinked. “I have no intention of _letting_ you or anyone else die at all.”

“That’s not reassuring.” Drift peered past him. “You have to watch your back, Ratchet. There are things. Dangerous things. The door has to stay closed. The field has to stay activated.”

“Out from under the desk, Drift.” Ratchet chose not to humor the paranoid ramblings.  “Come on.”

Drift’s response was unexpected – he grabbed Ratchet by the wrist and yanked him downwards. Ratchet overbalanced and fell, knocking his head against the desk and ending up sprawled over Drift. “You don’t understand,” Drift hissed. “This is real.”

“I’m sure it feels real,” Ratchet said, trying and failing to find enough leverage to extract himself without damaging Drift; he could feel the hollowness beneath Drift’s skin, and too much pressure would crack it open. The death grip on his wrist making it extraordinarily difficult to move didn’t help, either.

“ _No_ ,” Drift said, and Ratchet finally found a handhold with which to regain his footing.  Drift’s hand on his wrist meant that Drift came with him, finally out from under the desk. “It’s here,” Drift said. “It’s right here.”

“What’s here?” Ratchet asked absently, trying to pry Drift’s fingers loose. He wasn’t entirely sure that he wasn’t the only thing holding Drift upright.

“I can’t say.” Drift’s face took on a hunted and haunted look. “I can’t say. But you have to be ready.”

“How can I be ready if you won’t tell me what to prepare for?” Ratchet asked, but Drift just shook his head and finally let go. Ratchet took advantage of his sudden compliance to maneuver him onto the nearest empty recharge slab. “You should be stage four by now,” he muttered; every other Autobot with the level of mass reduction Drift was displaying was unconscious.

“I have to be ready,” Drift said. “It’s already here.”

“There’s nothing here,” Ratchet said again, although there really wasn’t a correct response to the paranoid incoherency.

“If it comes, I’ll keep you safe,” Drift said, and smiled up at him. “I’ll protect you.”

The arrival of the shuttle provided Ratchet with a reason not to engage with Drift’s paranoia; unfortunately, the information Chromedome was able to relay from the Metrotitan didn’t include anything that hadn’t already been tested on the Lost Light.

“So that’s it,” he said, when the Metrotitan’s memories turned out to be ultimately useless. “There’s no hope.”

“Nobody said that,” Ratchet said sharply.

Chromedome gave him a long look before walking over to where Rewind lay curled on a recharge slab and climbing up beside his significant other.

Ratchet felt a sudden appreciation for Prowl’s tendency to flip tables. Instead of giving in to the urge – aside from it being messy and dramatic, there really weren’t any actual tables to flip anyway – he glanced at First Aid.  “Where are the last three who were on the relic?”

“What?” First Aid blinked a few times, glancing around the medibay as if surprised to see it still there. “Oh, none of them were past stage two, so they’re still in the shuttle bay, why?”

Ratchet frowned down at the datapad in his hand; there was a memo from Ultra Magnus clearly stating that Hoist was well into stage three. A question to the SiC requesting confirmation of his observations earned him some restrained ire.

“Hoist was clearly exhibiting paranoia,” Ultra Magnus said.

“First Aid just determined that he was clearly in the early parts of stage two,” Ratchet objected. “Paranoia isn’t one of the symptoms at that stage, and Hoist isn’t prone to it as a matter of course.”

“I had to physically overpower and restrain him,” Ultra Magnus said. “He was not behaving normally.”

“He’s behaving normally _now._ ” Ratchet clamped down on his second irrational urge in fifteen minutes, which was to grab Ultra Magnus and shake him until he explained what he’d done to reverse Hoist’s symptoms. “What did you _do_?”

“I told you,” Ultra Magnus said, looking at him as if he’d said something absurd. “I overpowered and restrained him.”

“What _else_ did you do? Take me through every step.”

“Is this really necessary?”

Ratchet took a few seconds to ensure that his voice would remain steady. “I don’t think you see the significance. Hoist is the only patient whose progression has reversed. No one else has shown any kind of improvement – only steady deterioration. _Tell me exactly what you did_.”

Ultra Magnus frowned, but he began a blow-by-blow recap of the entirety of his interactions with Hoist; Ratchet asked questions about everything the SiC could remember. By the end of what had become more or less an interrogation, Ultra Magnus’ frustration was clearly evident, but Ratchet thought he had at least the beginnings of an answer.

The first sample of tissue infected with Strain Five came back more or less clean after an initial vacuum exposure, but it was far from an appropriate amount of testing. Ratchet looked around the medibay and decided that it was either proceed without said further testing or watch his friends and crewmates start to dissolve before his eyes.

“You can’t do that,” First Aid said when Ratchet disconnected Sunstreaker’s recharge slab for transportation.  “You don’t know what caused Hoist’s improvement.”

“Either some compound on the moon’s surface has miraculous healing powers, or the pathogen is susceptible to a vacuum,” Ratchet said. Hoist had been left outside the relic for as long as it had taken to rescue Atomizer and Jackpot and collect Chromedome again. It had been a significant chunk of time.  “I’m guessing it’s option B.”

“You’ll force him into stasis lock,” First Aid objected. “His condition –“

“He’s not getting any better in here,” Ratchet snapped, and Bob’s quiet whirring rose into a distressed chitter. First Aid stepped out of the way, and Ratchet wheeled the slab toward the nearest airlock. Magnetic clamps secured Sunstreaker to the slab and Ratchet to the ground, and after a moment’s thought, Ratchet attached the clamps to Bob as well. “This might help,” he told the Insecticon, and Bob nudged him.

“I’m opening the airlock,” Ratchet sent back to the medibay.

Outside, Ratchet stared at Sunstreaker for a moment and then started carefully peeling back his skin to expose as much of the pathogen to the vacuum as possible. Sunstreaker didn’t twitch during the entire process, but Ratchet winced at how little of his internal mechanisms remained. His protected t-cog and spark casing were at least more or less intact, which meant that his chances of recovery would be good if the pathogen could be neutralized.

Bob clung to the recharge slab the entire time, all four of his faintly glowing optics fixed on Ratchet.

“I feel cautiously optimistic,” Ratchet said, and then, “Why am I telling _you_?”

Bob chittered at him in what Ratchet thought was supposed to be a reassuring matter.

“Not helping,” Ratchet told him, and brought Sunstreaker back inside for further testing.

“Well?” Ultra Magnus asked, arms folded over his chest as Ratchet searched for signs that the pathogen’s growth had been halted.

“Vent the atmosphere,” Ratchet said.


	10. Epilogue

“You’ve got twenty minutes.”

“Understood.” Ultra Magnus nodded, optics flicking over to where Rodimus was pretending to be more recovered than he actually was.

“Look, everything is fine,” Rodimus said, and Ratchet poked him hard in the chest.

“Stay. There.” There was no doubt in Ultra Magnus’ mind that Ratchet would have tied Rodimus down if he’d thought it would do any good.  “I won’t be held responsible if you break your internal mechanisms. Again.”

Rodimus shifted, the hollow scraping of his skin against the recharge berth betraying the level of damage he still sustained, and angled himself into an ostentatiously lazy position. “Who said I was going anywhere?”

Ratchet growled incoherently at him and stalked toward the door. “One more idiot and I’m putting the whole crew in stasis,” he said to Ultra Magnus on his way out. It sounded like hyperbole, but Ultra Magnus made a mental note to make sure Ratchet didn’t actually follow through.

“So,” Rodimus said brightly, not moving. “How are things?”

Ultra Magnus told him; while nearly every crew member had been exposed to the pathogen, the majority of them hadn’t even started showing symptoms before the hard vacuum treatment had cured the infection. The worst cases – which included Rodimus, a reminder that Ultra Magnus did not verbalize – were expected to return to full duty by the end of the week.

“Don’t have the parts,” Rodimus muttered. “Can’t repair anything without the parts.”

“The raw materials are in plentiful supply,” Ultra Magnus said repressively; self-repair systems were doing most of the work. His internal chronometer told him that twelve of Ratchet’s twenty minutes remained, and the most pressing issue had yet to be discussed. “Rodimus,” he began, and the door slid open.

“You can’t just leave it there,” Drift said, walking stiffly across the room and leaning over Rodimus. He ignored Ultra Magnus in favor of the conversation he’d clearly started earlier, but picking up on the subject matter wasn’t difficult.

“Are you suggesting we tow it home?” Rodimus said. “It’s too big to get off the surface of the moon.”

“It–” Drift started to say.

“It has to be destroyed,” Ultra Magnus interrupted, folding his arms and looming. Drift flinched; apparently he hadn’t been ignoring Ultra Magnus so much as managing to miss the fact that he was there entirely. He recovered quickly.

“That’s a living being down there,” he said hotly. “You can’t just terminate it.”

“The Metrotitan is already dying,” Ultra Magnus said.

“Dying isn’t dead,” Drift protested. “Rodimus, back me up here.”

There was a moment of silence as Rodimus looked searchingly at both of them. “Ultra Magnus is right,” he said finally. “We can’t leave it here, and we can’t take it with us.”

“We –“ Drift started again.

“We can’t wait for it to die naturally, either,” Rodimus said. “We don’t have time. Besides, that’s just creepy.”

“I’ve already made the arrangements,” Ultra Magnus said. “Everything is ready. It just needs your sign-off, Rodimus.”

“What arrangements?” Rodimus asked.

More detail than Rodimus probably wanted followed, passing the 18-minute mark.  Ultra Magnus simply spoke over Drift’s continuing protests, citing wartime law and obscure regulations, until Drift fell silent and glared.

“Do it,” Rodimus said, when the explanation wound down.

“Rodimus!”

“Don’t, okay, Drift.” Rodimus passed a hand over his face.  “Just don’t,” he said, voice muffled. “It has to be done.”

“I don’t have to like it,” Drift said, but he wasn’t protesting any further.

“I know,” Rodimus said, and somehow that was enough for Drift.

“Rodimus,” he said, and then anything else he would have said was forestalled by the door sliding open yet again.

“There you are,” Ratchet said, glaring. If he’d been able to cause damage with a look alone, Drift would have been disintegrated on the spot. “When I tell you to stay put, I expect you to not move.”

“There was a pressing issue,” Drift said.

“Which someone else can handle.” Ratchet pushed Drift out the door and down the hallway.  “And you,” he added over his shoulder. “Twenty minutes.”

“It’s only been nineteen,” Ultra Magnus said. Ratchet narrowed his optics before resuming the maneuvering of Drift down the hallway.  Ultra Magnus could hear the continued bickering even through the closing door.

“Are we doing the right thing?” Rodimus asked. Second-guessing wasn’t his normal pattern of behavior.

“With the Metrotitan?” Ultra Magnus hesitated. “With Brainstorm’s mass displacement gun, it _could_ be reduced in size and taken with us.”

“No,” Rodimus said, voice regaining its confidence. “Put it out of its misery.” His voice dropped almost to an inaudible level. “It deserves peace just as much as any of us.”

Ultra Magnus nodded and left. As he watched, later, the Metrotitan quietly fell apart, the dust of its body and crew settling into the surface of the moon, and the faintest sound of whispering echoed through the bridge.

END

**Author's Note:**

> \-- Based on what we've seen in IDW canon, it seems that Cybertronians can survive brief exposure to a hard vacuum and extreme cold; I'm making the assumption that further exposure would force stasis lock but wouldn't be fatal.


End file.
